DOI: 10.1097/FCH.0000000000000138
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PMID: 27870746
Issn Print: 0160-6379
Publication Date: 2017/01/01
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Excerpt
The development and application of sound health promotion theory are critical to public health practice and research.3 By applying theory, we can begin to understand the many influential factors that prevent or allow health promotion interventions to take hold and to help select strategies most likely to build the supportive environments needed to both foster and sustain change.4 Within a research context, theory unifies and codifies knowledge and guides the search for why people adopt, do not adopt, or abandon healthy lifestyles. From a practitioner perspective, theory organizes information into patterns that promote health and prevent diseases. For these reasons, public health efforts based on theory are more likely to succeed than those developed without it.1
Given this backdrop, we developed a request for manuscripts that have the potential to advance theory in the field. We were pleasantly surprised that this call led to a number of excellent articles that described innovative studies, cutting across a wide spectrum of health behaviors. Four studies applied theory to physical activity–related behaviors. In the first study, Hamilton and colleagues describe the theoretical framework of Project SHAPE (Shaping Health using Activity Photovoice and E-Video), a physical activity program for rural, medically underserved children. The article does an excellent job at demonstrating how theory can be translated into practice, and lessons learned when doing so. In the next study, Nazaruk and colleagues utilized the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) for physical activity among rural young and middle-aged women. The use of SDT is growing in health behavior research and is useful in the way the theory is operationalizing motivation into intrinsic and different types of extrinsic motivation. This suggests that motivation, which is a cornerstone theory in many models, may not be a 1-dimensional construct as many may think. In the third study, the community health development framework was utilized to develop physical activity interventions in 3 rural communities. Each of the 3 communities used this theoretical model in slightly different ways to achieve the same goal. This study was particularly innovative in the way it demonstrates how theory can be used as a framework to establish local priorities and goals. Finally, Heinrich and colleagues applied the Integrated Theory of Health Behavior Change to understand key factors that both facilitate and restrict participation in group-based training.
Next, Abbass-Dick and Dennis discussed a breast-feeding coparenting framework. This model was developed on the basis of a number of coparenting models and research related to fathers' involvement with breast-feeding. An innovation to this model is the inclusion of fathers for playing a key role for this health behavior. Next, Branscum and Lora utilized the Integrative Behavioral Model (IBM) of Prediction to predict maternal monitoring of fruit and vegetable consumption among Hispanic mothers. The IBM represents advancement in the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), and research using this model has been limited, especially compared with research still being done using the TPB. This study targeted low-income, Hispanic mothers and describes how a proper needs assessment can be done, using a new and emerging theory.
