Identify your current or future profession (e.g., dentist, physician, community health worker, program manager). Create a fictitious scenario of an individual you wish to help, such as a patient in your clinic or a person in the community where you work. Describe the individual in terms of age, educational level, income, employment, family, home, and neighborhood context.
Next, choose a problem health behavior of interest, such as smoking, smokeless tobacco use, unhealthy diet, sedentary lifestyle, or poor oral hygiene. Describe the health problem.
Then, analyze the problem from the perspective of the biopsychosocial model. How is this problem influenced by biological factors, psychological factors on the individual level, and factors on the social and cultural levels?
This journal entry should be 450-500 words.
Competencies:
2. CEPH 6: Discuss the means by which structural bias, social inequities, and racism undermine health and create challenges to achieving health equity at organizational, community, and societal levels.
3. CEPH 7: Assess population needs, assets, and capacities that affect communities’ health.
4. CEPH 8: Apply awareness of cultural values and practices to the design or implementation of public health policies or programs.
13. CODA 5: Communicate on oral and public health issues.
18. MPH CD1: Apply and evaluate evidence to address oral health issues for individuals and populations.
Learning Objective:
1. Analyze health behavior using the biopsychosocial model.
Core Professional Attributes:
1. ATSU: Social Responsibility
2. ATSU: Cultural Proficiency
3. ATSU: Critical Thinking