Health Behavior: Theory, Research, and Practice

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.

KAREN GLANZ, PhD, MPH, is George A. Weiss University Professor, professor of epidemiology and nursing, and director of the Prevention Research Center and the Center for Health Behavior Research at the University of Pennsylvania.

BARBARA K. RIMER, DrPH, is dean and Alumni Distinguished Professor in the Department of Health Behavior in the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Kasisomayajula Vish Viswanath, PhD, is the Lee Kum Kee Professor of Health Communication in the Department of Social and Behavioral Science at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH), a faculty member in the Center for Population Sciences at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI). He is also the Co-Director of Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness at HPSH, Director of India Research Center at Harvard Chan and the Director of Translation Health Communication Science at Harvard Chan and Dana-Farber.