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A culturally-based theoretical model about how cultural beliefs about cancer and breast cancer screening techniques influence the screening behaviors of women of Mexican descent was developed using grounded theory. Across levels of acculturation and socioeconomic status, 34 women (49 to 81 years old) were interviewed through focus groups. Women who hold more traditional health beliefs about causes, nature, and responsibility with regard to breast cancer are more likely to "feel healthy" and not engage in breast cancer screening. Women who hold more traditional beliefs about propriety of female and health care provider behavior are more likely to "feel indecent" and also not engage in screening. The cultural health belief model is integrated within a sociocultural and a socioeconomic context.

This study investigated the relationship between life satisfaction and death concern in the elderly as a function of age, self-reported health status, and religious involvement in order to examine the concept of ego integrity as porposed by Erikson (1963). Eighty-one subjects were recruited from the Good Samaritan Retirement Village in Kissimmee, Florida, and were divided into two groups: (1) the younger-old group which consisted of 42 individuals between the ages of 65 and 75, and (2) the older-old group which consisted of 39 individuals over the age of 75 years old. All subjects were administered the Life Satisfaction Index A (Neugarten, Havighurst, & Tobin, 1961), the Death concern Scale (Dickstein, 1972), a self-reported health measure and religious involvement measure developed by the investigators. Two factors from the Death Concern Scale, the negative evaluation of the reality of Death and the conscious contemplation od death, were also examined in relation to life satisfaction, self-reported health staus, and religious involvement. The results obtained through Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients demonstrated significant inverse relationships between life satisfaction and death concern and between life satisfaction and the conscious contemplation of death for both the older-old and younger-old groups. Self-reported health status was also noted to be significantly related to lfe satisfaction and death concern for the younger-old group. analyses of t tests for independent groups yielded no significant differences on the six dependent measures between the two age groups. No significant sex differences were noted for either age group. The results support the concept of ego integrity indicating that those individuals who are more satisified with their lives also tend to be less concerned about death. The measures utilized in this study were noted to be reliable across age groups. It is suggested that future research examine differences between present and past life satisfaction in relation to death attitudes.

This study examined the relationship between nutrition and health attitudes in 1,887 Navy men stationed aboard ships and shore commands and the relationship of these attitudes to physical readiness measures: 1.5 mile run, sit-ups, pushups, and percent body fat. Five attitudinal factors were developed from a self-report lifestyle questionnaire through factor analysis: General nutrition orientation, high fat food preference, positive exercise attitude, willingness to seek help attitude, and eating locus of control. Results of the self report of habitual eating patterns suggest that the typical Navy man skips breakfast, has a relatively high saturated fat intake and does not meet recommended intake levels of complex carbohydrates. Furthermore, results indicate that Navy men with an external locus of control have a higher percent body fat while younger, leaner Navy men scored higher on their preference for high fat foods. Implications of these results suggest the necessity for a two pronged approach to nutrition intervention programs in Navy populations. The first approach should be directed towards treatment in rehabilitation of individuals who scored high on the external locus of control attitude. These men had higher percent body fat which is unacceptable to the Navy's Physical Readiness Program standards. The second approach should be directed to younger, leaner individuals in the study who scored high in the high fat food preference category. A preventive nutrition education approach in line with the Surgeon General's recommendations should be incorporated into the Navy's weight control and nutrition education programs. / Master of Science

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The current PhD thesis aimed to cross-culturally investigate the effectiveness of gain- and loss-framed physical activity messages among the university students in Turkey and the UK. This study sought to test the impact of the physical activity messages focusing on stress-related effects on physical activity intentions, attitudes and behaviours of the target group. The messages were developed based on the findings of a series of preliminary studies targeting to determine the characteristics and needs of the target groups, and identify the barriers to engage in physical activity. Two quasi-experimental studies were conducted with 309 university students from the two countries (200 participants from Turkey and 109 participants from the UK) to test the effects of framed messages on intentions and attitudes towards physical activity, and physical activity behaviour change in two weeks after message exposure. Results showed that immediate effects of both gain- and loss-framed messages on physical activity intentions and attitudes were significant in Turkey and the UK. However, these effects could not be maintained in the two weeks following the message exposure. Moreover, the loss-framed message led to a message reactance in the UK, and physical activity intensity of the participants in the loss-framed group were significantly decreased compared to their baseline physical activity levels. The present study was the first message framing study comparing Turkey and the UK in terms of the impact of gain- and loss-framed framed physical activity messages. Therefore, this study contributes to the literature through providing evidence on the effects of message framing interventions which are developed and implemented in different cultures. Recommendations for future message framing research include measuring physical activity behaviour through objective methods, and examining the impact of the tailored messages through using different dissemination methods in larger samples.

The relationship between health beliefs, based on the Health Beliefs Model, and compliance with a sodium-restricted diet was investigated. Significant predictors of compliance and the relationships among compliance measures were also investigated. The Health Beliefs Questionnaire was administered to a convenience sample of 30 hypertensive elderly subjects. Overnight urine chloride, questionnaire (added salt and salty foods), blood pressure, and dietary recall operationalized compliance. No significant relationship was found between a total health beliefs score, perceived resusceptibility to hypertension, and perceived severity of hypertension and compliance. Perceived benefits of antihypertension treatment had significant relationships with urine chloride (r = 0.41) and blood pressure (r = 0.35). Age, a significant predictor, accounted for 12% of compliance. Urine chloride significantly correlated with added salt (r = 0.44), salty foods (r = 0.44), and blood pressure (r = 0.45). Barriers to a sodium-restricted diet were categorized as no control of salt in prepared foods, desire for salt, addictive behavior, and beliefs about salt.

One hundred persons applying for services with the Texas Rehabilitation Commission with reported disabilities of alcohol/substance abuse or back injury/pain were selected for study. Subjects were assigned to two groups (alcohol or back) according to their reported disability. They were tested within one week of application and after 60 days were checked to see what rehabilitation status they were in to determine success or failure. Alcohol clients were administered the Health Attribution Test (HAT), 16PF, and an Alcohol Imagery questionnaire developed for this study. Back clients were administered the HAT, 16PF, and Pain Drawings. Statistical procedures including Pearson correlation, stepwise discriminant analysis, and discriminant analysis were performed. The HAT Internal Factor showed a significant relationship to rehabilitation success or failure and the 16PF motivation indices approached significance. The discriminant analysis demonstrated that success or failure could be predicted at a significant level using these measures. Issues of practicality in using these instruments (particularly imagery measures) in a rehabilitation counseling practice were noted.

The purpose of this study was twofold. Primarily, the study was conducted to establish the extent to which the local public access television programs produced by the Wayne County Health Department, Richmond, Indiana had been an effective source of health information in helping raise health awareness for adult residents who have access to cable television. The secondary purpose of the study was to gather information for the department's future television programming. Five face-to-face interview participants and twenty-five telephone survey participants responded to seventeen questions. The questions concerned health information acquired by watching public access television programs, participants' preferences for certain health topics and formats for the television presentations, and whether they had taken any specific actions that were a result of the health related information gained through watching the public access television programs. In addition, the participants were asked about their respective demographic characteristics.The study produced two major findings regarding the adult participants' opinions or whether they obtained health information through public access television and how their demographic characteristics correlated to previous research done regarding viewing habits and the utilization of television as a source of health information.1. The majority of the Wayne County adults interviewed both in person and by telephone reported at least one piece of health information acquired by watching public access television health programs.2. The demographic findings were mixed as it pertained to some of the major research related to this study.The results of this study indicated that adult or public health educators may, where appropriate, consider the use of public access television as a method to help raise health awareness with adults. It is suggested that additional research should be done on this particular topic because of the dearth of previous research done on this specific topic. / Department of Educational Leadership

Edvinsson, J. & Eriksson, I. (2014). Den sociala omgivningens påverkan på kvinnors hälsa - En kvalitativ studie om sju unga kvinnors upplevelser. Kandidatuppsats i pedagogik. Högskolan i Gävle, Akademin för Utbildning och Ekonomi, Avdelningen för utbildningsvetenskap. Den sociala omgivningen och dess processer har visat sig påverka individers upplevelser av vad hälsa är och även deras hälsoattityder- och beteenden. I dagsläget är däremot medvetenheten liten kring hur processerna påverkar dessa, samtidigt som kvinnor upplever sin hälsa sämre än någonsin. Det behövs mer forskning om fenomenet sociala processer och hälsa, som kan öka medvetenheten kring detta. Därför är syftet med denna studie att undersöka hur unga kvinnor beskriver hälsa samt hur de upplever att deras sociala omgivning påverkar deras hälsoattityder- och beteenden. Metoden som användes var kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer med sju kvinnor mellan 20-30 år. Det insamlade materialet kategoriserades utifrån gemensamma teman och analyserats med inspiration av fenomenologi. Resultatet visade genom samlade upplevelser att kvinnorna upplevde hälsa som en balans mellan psykiskt och fysiskt välmående. Det fanns upplevelser av förväntningar och normer i omgivningen kring hälsoattityder- och beteenden, samtidigt som kvinnorna inte ansåg att dessa har någon påverkan på hur de upplevde hälsa. Omgivningen har med andra ord ingen uttalad påverkan på kvinnornas upplevelser av hälsa. Däremot går det inte att konstatera att påverkan inte sker eftersom det kan vara en omedveten process som sker i samspel med omgivningen. / Edvinsson, J. & Eriksson, I. (2014). Den sociala omgivningens påverkan på kvinnors hälsa - En kvalitativ studie om sju unga kvinnors upplevelser. Bachelor thesis in Education. University of Gavle, School of Education and Economy, Department of education science. The social environment and its different processes have been shown to influence individual’s perception of health and peoples’ attitude toward health and behavior constructions. However, the range of knowledge about these processes and their influence is small, while women perceive their health worse than ever. It is essential that more research be conducted, on the phenomenon of social processes and health, which can increase awareness around this. increase the awareness of health and its benefits. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate how young women describe health and how they perceive that heir social environment and surroundings influences their attitude and behavior toward health. The method that was used in this study was qualitative semi-constructed interviews that were answered by seven women, aged 20-30 years. The data have thereafter been categorized by common themes and was then analyzed with the help and inspiration of phenomenology. The result, the common experiences that these women shared, showed that health was perceived as a balance between psychical and physical wellbeing. The social environment contain expectations and norms regarding the attitudes and behaviors toward health, however the women did not conceive these to have any impact on their experience of health. The environment and surroundings have therefore no pronounced influence over the women’s experience of health. It is impossible, however, to verify that there are no influence what so ever, as it may be an unconscious process in interplay with the surroundings.