Three and Four - just to keep you busy in the snow!

How to do assignment 3

The assignment really only does ask for notes.  You can do an essay if you want to, probably about 3000 words to do it justice I suppose.  Try  to think of the style you get in a revision book.  Not too worried about punctuation,  might be just bullet points and one liners.  But how do you make your own notes? 

If you look at the assignment,  you might notice that the headings follow the sections in the course booklet.  So you will probably want to start with the health belief model.  Describe it.  Who first devised it?  Aha!  A possible reference here! 

You will see some evaluative points mentioned, but the Health Belief Model and the Theory of Reasoned Action are seen as social cognition models.  You might want to evaluate them jointly.  Fine! 

… and so on to the end of the assignment.  Don’t forget a reference section. 

How to do Assignment 4

You should find this one easy and enjoyable.  Well, enjoyable if you like.  First pick yourself a health promotion campaign.  Anti-smoking, perhaps?  Or the chlamydia campaign in the college.  What about obesity, dental health, or immunisation of infants?

What I want you to ultimately submit is a kind of portfolio, with some leaflets, possibly some web material  and some writing.  Think of anti-smoking promotions.  Do they see smoking as social or anti-social?  Do they try to make smokers frightened?  And what about the benefits of a cure?  To do the assignment, you should look for such things in the campaign literature and say how the health belief model or theory of reasoned action/theory of planned behaviour apply.  You can be critical or supporting or neutral, it doesn’t matter as long as you give a  balanced evaluation of the campaign.

Here’s an example:  how to lift things properly at work (or in the home).  Do you have to lift things?  Do you do it properly?  Why not?  Perhaps you don’t think you are likely to slip a disc.  Perhaps you haven’t got the equipment.  Perhaps, as a young man, it’s macho to lift heavy things?  All these are the kind of balances and pressures on people to take on a particular health behaviour. 

Here’s a site with some campaign ideas – for example, how serious is smoking portrayed?  Will it happen to me?  - these are some of the possible beliefs in the HBM.

http://www.bhf.org.uk/keeping_your_heart_healthy/preventing_heart_disease/smoking.aspx

The format for the assignment is really up to you.  A small folder with some leaflets, cuttings etc. and the written assignment or notes will be fine.  But you must have a reference section somewhere.  You can obtain a pass with the course booklet alone, but the really good assignments will have gone into some extra resources.  Gross is good, and so is any other major text book.

ALERT!!  ALERT!!  OMG I’ve just noticed a major problem for you.  There are no references for Health Belief Model or Theory of Reasoned Action in the Course Booklet.  I’ll sort them out for you in the next few days.