Behavior changes & disease prevention: MCW research shows effectiveness of HIV/AIDS risk reduction interventions. Medical College of Wisconsin.
Many of the diseases that cause premature illness and death--including some cancers, heart disease, and AIDS--could be prevented if persons made behavior changes to reduce their risk for developing the illnesses. Over the past two decades, there have been great advances in our scientific understanding of how to promote health risk behavior change. This paper briefly reviews elements and examples of effective behavior change interventions, including programs that can be offered in service settings as well as community-level interventions. The prevention of diseases through behavioral public health interventions requires the investment of funds but can reduce burdens on health care systems, reduce the human toll caused by premature deaths, and be highly cost-effective. A remarkable number of diseases could be prevented if individuals were effectively assisted in changing the risk behaviors responsible for those illnesses. The causal association between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, other pulmonary diseases, and cardiovascular disease is well-known, and millions of premature deaths could be prevented if people stopped smoking cigarettes. Deaths due to cardiovascular disease could be dramatically reduced if persons made behavioral and lifestyle changes to improve their fitness through exercise, obesity reduction, and maintenance of low blood cholesterol levels. The World Health Organization estimates that over 45 million persons worldwide have already contracted HIV infection, and nearly 1 million of these cases are in the United States. Over 40,000 Americans continue to contract HIV infection each year. Virtually every new case of HIV infection is preventable if individuals at risk made changes in their sexual or drug use practices. While lung cancer, cardiovascular disease, and AIDS are three of the clearest examples, persons' behavior plays a direct or a contributing role in the development of many other diseases that cause premature death or that worsen health and life quality. Recognition of the link between behavior and preventable illness--and recognition that enormous health, economic, and quality of life benefits could be realized through healthier behavior patterns--is not new. We have known all of this for a long time. We have also known for a very long time that helping people to successfully change risky behavior habits is often very difficult. Over the past 20 years, a field of scientific study and applied practice has developed with the purpose of better understanding why persons engage in health risk behavior patterns and developing approaches to help people change these patterns. Under the rubric of "behavioral medicine", this field makes use of behavioral science theory and behavior change techniques applied to health and disease prevention.
Kelly
J A
JA
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee 53202, USA. kdemming@mcw.edu
D000163:Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000517:prevention & control*; D003256:Community Participation; D005260:Female; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000517:prevention & control*; D015497:HIV-1; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012106:Research; D012309:Risk-Taking; D012577:Schools, Medical; D014922:Wisconsin