CONCEPTS AND THEORIES OF HEALTH BEHAVIOR

The Session Long Project (SLP) is a progressive assignment that involves assessing a health behavior; researching and identifying an evidence-based model or best practice strategies to best address the health behavior; creating a plan (i.e., program or an intervention) and outlining implementation procedures; and suggesting appropriate evaluation tools to measure effectiveness of the proposed program or intervention. This will be developed in phases throughout the session. The task and assignment expectations for each segment of the project will be explained in each module.

Choose one of the following topics to focus on for the rest of the Session Long Project (SLP):

• Teen pregnancy.
• Older adults’ injury from falls.

You will be writing your Module 1 – 4 SLP assignments based on the one topic you have chosen from the list above.

For Module 1, conduct a literature search utilizing peer-reviewed journal articles, books, professional organization articles, government Web sites, etc. Write a 3-page background paper on the health behavior you selected. Make sure you meet the expectations in order to be eligible to earn full credit.

The following items will be assessed in particular:

1. Identify one topic and a target population (from the SLP topics above) to focus on. Describe your target population and the health behavior(s) that relate to the topic you have chosen.
2. Based on your literature search, assess and provide background information on the health behaviors. Include statistics to explain the scope of the problem.
3. Provide an explanation as to why it is important to address the health behavior you have chosen.
4. What benefits or consequences do the behaviors have on individuals’ health?