Health Behavior: Theory, Research, and Practice

by Karen Glanz (Editor), Barbara K. Rimer (Editor), K. Viswanath (Editor)

The essential health behavior text, updated with the latest theories, research, and issues

Health Behavior: Theory, Research and Practice provides a thorough introduction to understanding and changing health behavior, core tenets of the public health role. Covering theory, applications, and research, this comprehensive book has become the gold standard of health behavior texts. This new fifth edition has been updated to reflect the most recent changes in the public health field with a focus on health behavior, including coverage of the intersection of health and community, culture, and communication, with detailed explanations of both established and emerging theories. Offering perspective applicable at the individual, interpersonal, group, and community levels, this essential guide provides the most complete coverage of the field to give public health students and practitioners an authoritative reference for both the theoretical and practical aspects of health behavior.

A deep understanding of human behaviors is essential for effective public health and health care management. This guide provides the most complete, up-to-date information in the field, to give you a real-world understanding and the background knowledge to apply it successfully.

Learn how e-health and social media factor into health communication Explore the link between culture and health, and the importance of community Get up to date on emerging theories of health behavior and their applications Examine the push toward evidence-based interventions, and global applications

Written and edited by the leading health and social behavior theorists and researchers, Health Behavior: Theory, Research and Practice provides the information and real-world perspective that builds a solid understanding of how to analyze and improve health behaviors and health.

Genres: Nonfiction, Health, Textbooks, Psychology, Reference, School, Grad School

490 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 1990

Reviews

[Mehrsa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just GREAT
currently I'm working on a population- behavioral model reserach on menstural habits and attitudes in non-urben cities and this book was suugeted by my dear Proffessor. really helped me to apply the health belief models in my research. It's a little bit adavnced level but you can handle it if you are familiar enough to your reseracg question and research field
5/5

[Mahnoor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books that one could read for an introduction to health behavior and health education. The contents, as the title suggests, provide you an overview of all the work and development done for health education and behavior theory, research, and practice.

Before reading this book, I only had a very amateur grasp of the theories and frameworks used in this field (thanks to work). It is with my supervisor's infectious thirst for knowledge that I decided to undertake more formal training (on my own) to support my work. Now I feel entirely familiar and comfortable with the major theories and frameworks, to the point where it's easy for me to apply them in my professional job. The language is direct and accessible; even with beginner-level knowledge, it is easy to grasp. One interesting thing to note is that the book also offers a current discourse on health communication and e-health, which in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, is more pertinent than ever. To quote my supervisor, "this is our go-to Bible."

The book also helped me to recognize and refine my own interests for my post-grad and research avenues in social and behavior change with the intersection of health. It served as a starting resource that helped me to look up more authors, papers, books, and commentaries in the field of health behavior and health education. Including the original works of theorists covered in this such as Bandura, Ajzen, Fishbein, Kaspryzk and Montano and mentions of works on norms (compelling me to look up Lapinski and Rimal).

[Devon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read this book twice now and continuously find new, helpful information in it! Great for public health professionals!

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

A quote from this book... " Thus the readers of this book should 'pass with relief from the tossing sea of Cause and Theory to the firm ground of Result and Fact' (Churchill, 1898). As the ocean meets the shore, so we hope you will find that theory, research, and practice in health promotion and education stretch out to converge in a single landscape"

ridiculous attempts at making a book about theory sound like 18th century poetry aside, it's a good overview of various models and theories of health behavior and programs.

[Courtney · Rating 2 out of 5]

As far as Health Behavior goes, I'm sure this book was great. There were some chapters that the authors automatically seemed to assume that you had read the books that they were referencing as they explained the different theories. That wasn't the case in my opinion and some of the theories were confusing because of it. I'm glad that there's a newer version of the textbook and would actually be interested in comparing the differences between the two, but yeah this book wasn't too bad as far as text books are concerned.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Required text for my Preventive Medicine 818 class, Social and Behavioral Aspects of Public Health. Good class.

[Tim Sharma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the chapters were were terribly written, others were well read. All in all, this book is a mixed bag, but there is a lot of useful information.

[Kelsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, it was for school so... it was no pleasure read. But I thought it did a great job of explaining the different theories, constructs etc. with realistic and helpful examples.

[Kenny Oyama · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book offers a good variety of topics in health behavior research written at a level appropriate for advanced undergraduates and graduate students.

[Deborah Davidson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I used this for an undergraduate Community and Behavioral health class this summer. It is very well laid out and easy to follow. The format lead to a clear understanding of how to choose, implement and evaluate community health interventions.

[Brittani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Research is dated, but overall provides a good starting point for finding current research on the topic.

[Judi Nath · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read the previous edition while in graduate school. Purchased an updated version as a refresher for pandemic reading.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A helpful but overview of some health communication principles, models, and practices, with select example applications.

[Karlee]

Dense… but good theory overviews. Obvi read for class.