Public health and health psychology: Two cats of Kilkenny?

Abstract

In this article I describe the opposition of concepts underlying the public health and health psychology disciplines. The considerations of active versus passive and individual versus population approaches to prevention currently divide the two disciplines. Some writers for the public health model vigorously advocate the passive, structural intervention as the most important strategy while deprecating the fundamental tenets of health psychology and behavioral health. This attitude is discussed in terms of finding the most comprehensive, effective, acceptable, and implementable strategy to achieve preventive health benefits through a multifaceted approach targeted at numerous levels of intervention involving both active and passive and both individual and population approaches.

A Pilot Study of Increasing Nonpurposeful Movement Breaks at Work as a Means of Reducing Prolonged Sitting

“…The first finding of this study was that the employees in our sample were willing to accept a passive-based workplace e-health intervention [48] that was predicated on the principles of introducing nonpurposeful movement. No participant withdrew from the study during the 26-week study, although not all participants achieved our rigid criteria of full compliance by completing seven nonpurposeful movement breaks throughout the workday.…”

“…A workplace e-health intervention underpinned by a passive prompt increased compliance by nearly five times to increasing nonpurposeful movement during the workday compared to when employees were left to their own free will to comply with the intervention. Within the context of passive versus active approaches to interventions [48] we believe this is the first field-based report of desk-based employees accepting a coercive persuasive system within a preventative health intervention designed to increase nonpurposeful movement at work. Given the low compliance rates for the active condition, which occurred after the passive condition for all participants, it could be assumed that the new behaviour of participating in hourly nonpurposeful movement had not become habitual.…”

Motivating children to use safety belts: A program combining rewards and “Flash for Life”

“…Motivating behavior change to prevent injuries, in particular, will be especially important where other control efforts (e.g., state laws, structural approaches) have not been successful (Roberts, 1987). The present project demonstrates the utility of behavioralpsychological applications for increasing children's use of readily available safety devices.…”

Designing Antecedent Strategies for Increasing Safe Driving: A Pledgecard for Encouraging Belts and Discouraging Booze

“…A major contributing factor to deaths and injury resulting from traffic crashes is people and their behavior (Califano, 1979), particularly the non-use of occupant restraints and excessive alcohol consumption prior to driving (Roberts, 1987;Roberts & Brooks, 1987;Sleet, 1987).…”