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Health can be described as both a product and a process of life, and is necessary for human wellbeing, overall quality of life and productivity. While health is generally desirable, many factors affect health and health outcomes of individuals and populations the world over. Virtually all individuals will be faced with one health problem or another during their lifetime, that requires some form of health care intervention. Whatever their reasons for seeking care, all health care consumers share a common interest – a desire to get better. In a pluralistic health care environment where different avenues exist for seeking and receiving health care, differential choice of care may be influenced by sociodemographic and related factors. To the extent that the available avenues for seeking and receiving health care do not offer the same opportunities for improving health, significantly different health outcomes may be realized for comparable conditions for which different types and volume of health care are sought and received. Understanding the factors that influence health-seeking behaviors among various populations may therefore, be an important first step in designing intervention programs that nudge health consumers toward better health-seeking behaviors with the goal to improving health and health outcomes among these populations. The purpose of this research was to develop a research instrument for studying health-seeking behaviors based on the Health Belief Model, and to use the instrument to study the factors that influence/predict health-seeking behaviors among Ghanaians. Using a convenience sample of 504 participants recruited from the Greater Accra, Ashanti, Volta and Northern Regions, analyses of the data showed that different sociodemographic characteristics such as age group, gender and health insurance status as well as selected modified constructs of the Health Belief Model such as Perceived Barriers to mainstream care, variously and collectively influence health-seeking behaviors at government and private health facilities, self-medication with herbal and pharmaceutical drugs, faith healing and care from traditional/herbal practitioners. Based on the findings of this study, the author concludes that health-seeking behaviors in Ghana are influenced by a multiplicity of factors including sociodemographic characteristics. Subsequently, recommendations for a more extensive study with a complementary qualitative enquiry are made in order to gain a more wholistic insight of the drivers of health-seeking behaviors in Ghana.

The growing Thai community in Eastern Massachusetts has an unofficial ethnic enclave that surrounds the neighborhood of Allston/Brighton. Studies of Thai communities in the United States indicate that Thai-Americans have limited access to quality health care in the United States due to factors that contribute to health disparities such as language barriers and cultural beliefs. As a result, Thai people have different approaches to how they treat illnesses through traditional Thai medicine (TTM), Western medicine (also called biomedicine), or a mixture of both medical systems. This study examines healthways Thai/Thai Americans in Eastern Massachusetts draw on in response to different illnesses. In-depth stories of how this community engages in illness prevention and responses to the experiences of illness illuminated by Thai people’s approaches to different medical systems helps us understand how they present their values when seeking medical care. I argue that responses to various illness episodes experienced by members of the Thai community in Eastern Massachusetts influence perceived health and health-seeking behaviors. Factors that contribute to Thai-American health practices include: religion, sociocultural elements (cultural identity, generational differences, cross-cultural differences, structural violence), and Thai constructs of illness and well-being.

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<p>This dissertation aimed at examining the predictors of HPV vaccination intentions of college students in a Kenyan university and those in a Midwest university in the United States of America (USA). Using the theory of planned behavior (TPB), the dissertation investigated the most salient factors that predict the vaccination intentions of college male and female students in Kenya and the USA. A mixed method approach was utilized to collect data from the participants. Specifically, interviews with 43 students (22 from Kenya and 21 from USA) were used to collect the qualitative data from the students. The quantitative data were collected using closed-ended surveys with 512 Kenyan students at a large university in Uasin Gishu County and 522 students at the Midwestern university, USA. The qualitative findings revealed that identification had a major influence on how students sought health, ate, and related with their peers. In particular, identification through religiosity influenced the students’ attitudes toward sex and perception of oneself. Thus, many respondents reported viewing their bodies as the temple of God and sex as an activity for married couples. Thus, when they engaged in premarital sex, they often felt disconnected with God and they resulted to seeking forgiveness, minimizing their actions, and normalizing their actions.</p><p>Overall, the quantitative results suggested that college students in Kenya and the USA converged in certain health trends but differed in several others. For example, the Kenyan participants depicted a low understanding of HPV and HPV vaccine compared to the participants at the Midwestern university. The country of the participant also moderated the relationships between subjective norms and intentions, sex attitudes, vaccine attitudes, and intention to get vaccinated. The participants from the USA, for example, reported a stronger relationship between subjective norms and the intention to be vaccinated compared to the participants from Kenya. The results of this study also showed that the gender of the participant had an influence on the attitudes of students toward sex, with male participants having more favorable attitudes toward sex compared to female participants. Overall, subjective norms and cancer worry were the only common vaccine predictors among both female and male participants from Kenya and the USA. Surprisingly, although religiosity was correlated with other variables under consideration, it did not emerge as a direct predictor of the intention to get vaccinated. This might suggest it as a probable indirect predictor.</p><p>Being a comparative study of students in two countries, this dissertation offers unique insights that can inform theory, research, practice, and policy development. Specifically, the results point to the need for health practitioners designing health campaigns to consider the unique differences that exist among male and female students in Kenya and the USA. Some of the weaknesses of the study include use of self-report measures, which are limited to the memory of participants. This study suggests that researchers continue to explore the role of religiosity in influencing health-seeking behaviors among college students.</p>

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