In this lesson, we will discuss health promotion, health

behavior, and the three different kinds of disease

prevention strategies you can employ to stay healthy for
as long as possible.
 ?
HEALTH BEHAVIORS

!
Avoiding Disease
Modern medicine is thankfully becoming a little bit less about
treating a disease and a bit more about preventing disease in the
first place. Sometimes, once you have a disease, it's difficult to
treat it, and when you do treat it, the medicines you take can
cause other problems. It should be obvious then that making sure
you don't get injured or sick or catch a disease is critical to living
a full and healthy life.
Health Promotion and Behavior
Health promotion is defined by the World Health Organization as the process
of enabling people to increase control over their health and its determinants,
and thereby improve their health.

Two important organizations in the U.S. that accomplish this task are the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and National Institutes of
Health (NIH). These agencies serve as centers of information for people who
have questions about a certain disease or health-related goals, such as exercise
or nutrition. They also conduct research into the latest preventative strategies
with respect to maintaining a healthy lifestyle and preventing disease, be it
infectious or otherwise (like cancer).

In fact, these agencies provide you with health behavior-related information.

Health behavior refers to a person's beliefs and actions regarding their health
and well-being.
 As a good example of this, some people's health
behaviors jive well with promoting and maintaining a
healthy lifestyle. People on their best health behavior:

Do not smoke or use any

other tobacco products. 01
Do not drink in excess. This means no more

02
than two drinks per day for a man under
age 65 and one drink per day for a woman
of any age or a man over age 65.
 They also exercise regularly.
As a case in point, you can
perform two and a half hours
of brisk walking every week to
help improve your physical
fitness. 03
And furthermore, such people eat
well. This doesn't solely imply you
should just eat more fruits and
vegetables, which is true. It also
means you should simultaneously cut

04 back on salty food, greasy meals,

and too many things with simple
sugar, like cola or sweets.
Disease Prevention Strategies

Now, using the CDC or NIH to gather information about the public health
causes they are promoting
Secondary is important
prevention—those in ordermeasures
preventive to makethat sure you stay
Tertiary prevention—those preventive
on top oflead
the to
latest
early diagnosis and prompt treatment oforaadisease,
research regarding your health disease you may
measures
Primary
illness Engaging aimed
prevention—those
or injury toinpreventat rehabilitation
preventive
more
measuresfollowing
severe problems
that
already have.
prevent the onset healthy
of illnessbehavior
or injury evendeveloping.
is,before more clearly, critical
the
significant
Here health illness. At thissuchlevelas health
educators Health services
Extension
for wellness.
disease process begins.
workers cancanwork
Practitioners help toindividuals
retrain, acquire
re-educate and of
the skills
rehabilitate
detecting
Examples people
diseases
include who
in their have
early
immunization already
stages.
and taking developed
regular
But there's a third
•Examples aspect
include here
screening I'd like
for to
high get
blood to right now.
pressure and It's called
an impairment or disability.
exercise.
disease prevention, and it is the practice of taking steps in order to
breast self-examination.
thwart a disease from occurring in the first place. There are actually
three levels of disease prevention that you can employ in order to keep
yourself full of vigor, strength, and youth for as long as possible.