Advances in multiple health behavior change research

Excerpt

In the USA, national surveys have long demonstrated that adults tend to have multidimensional patterns of health behaviors (e.g., smoking, poor diet, sedentary activity, risky drinking, etc.), rather than any one of these health behaviors in isolation [1, 2]. This trend results in not only higher rates of premature mortality, but also morbidity and disability [3, 4]. In addition, this trend is not limited to adult populations, but has been shown to start in adolescence. Pronk and colleagues [5] found that less than a third of adolescents are at criteria for having a healthy weight, physical activity, diet, and not smoking. Multiple risk behaviors also have been shown to have incremental increases in disability, pharmaceutical, and overall medical costs in large worksite samples. Research has shown that by treating two behaviors effectively, an individual's medical costs decrease by approximately $2,000 per year [6]. The benefits of impacting on multiple behaviors are therefore important for a variety of reasons. …