Health behavior: evolution of two paradigms.

Public health nursing is a synthesis of professional nursing and public health science. To assist people effectively to determine and enhance their health capabilities, it is essential that public health nurses have a sound understanding of the behaviors that improve or jeopardize health. This concern arises from the profession’s increased emphasis on health behavior and from nursing’s stated goal of health promotion. To examine the topic from the perspectives of public health and professional nursing, we examine several issues related to the concept and its definition. We hope that the discussion will stimulate analysis both to ciarib the concept and to contribute to the development of public health nursing science. At present, public health nursing possesses a limited amount of research on which to base its pmctice. Because of this, public health nurses have not rigorously defined many of Address correspondence to: Shirley Cloutier Lafkey, Assistant Professor, Community Health Nursing, School of Nursing, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143. Telephone: (415) 666-5213, 6661504. This paper was adapted from a presentation at the annual meeting of he American Public Health Association, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, November 1982. S. Joy Winkle?, Ph.D., R.N. died suddenly in S e p tember 1985. the concepts that are integral to practice, leading to imprecision and inconsistency in their use. For example, health behavior is variously defined as (1) use of health care services, (2) compliance with mediklly prescribed regimens, (3) routine activities of one’s life such as eating and sleeping, (4) actions taken to prevent illness, and (5) actions taken to achieve a higher level of well-being. These diverse definitions are frequently applied interchangeably, making it difficult to determine what is meant by the term.