Flinders University PHCA9516: Ecological Approaches Discussion

This discussion board post, stemming from a lecture on ecological approaches to health behaviour change, delves into the ongoing debate between individual-level and ecological approaches. The post presents a student's perspective, advocating for a combined approach that leverages both individual and ecological strategies. The student acknowledges the value of individual-level approaches for assessing a person's readiness for change and providing personalized support. However, it emphasizes the importance of ecological approaches in modifying environmental factors to influence behaviour, using anti-smoking campaigns as an example. The post also touches upon the potential limitations of ecological interventions, such as restrictions on freedom and social segregation, as well as the complexities of evaluating their effectiveness. The student uses a food bank example to highlight the challenges in encouraging healthier choices even when resources are available. This contribution aims to provide a balanced view of the subject matter, considering the pros and cons of each approach, and suggesting a more holistic approach to health behaviour change.

RUNNING HEAD: SOCIOLOGY
SOCIOLOGY
Name of Student
Name of University
Author note

1SOCIOLOGY
Informative research is necessary to apply the conceptual framework to understand the
sociocultural influences on human behavior and how it affects healthcare and servicing. Ecological
model (Simplican et al. 2015) further is based on five hierarchies od influence - (a) individual level
that involve beliefs, education level, values, skills (b) interpersonal level that includes the
interpersonal relationships existent between individuals (c) organizational level that encompasses
organizational skills (d) community level that involve how communities and individuals interrelates to
each other, the community attitudes and relationship between institutions within the communities (e)
policy level which refer to regulations and policies affecting the intervention participants and
influencing the institutions.
At individual level – patients get synchronized with the “informed” needs and then
participate in collaborative decision making, finally interacting with the patient information streams—
in “patient-accessible” form. This accessibility is important to a patient centered care. The patient, his
clinician and the family member should have access to the decision-support (Melnick et al. 2017)
educational, communication tools, informational technology that incorporates critical information
from the summative sources. According to the patient's perspective – improvement of timeliness,
treatment convenience, treatment effectiveness and efficient care is required to interconnect the
patient with the healthcare system.
Ecological approach encompasses a wide-ranging spectrum of planning, execution and
evaluation over an entire population of a community and environment. Hence, it has to be planned
and delivered by organization –level, community level, national level and global experts to make for
simpler and easily accessible to the public. But this has to be planned, keeping in mind – the
behavioral, cognitive need of each patient. Hence, nothing is trivial and unimportant for each of the
model extends a unique support system to the patients and clients.

2SOCIOLOGY
References
Simplican, S.C., Leader, G., Kosciulek, J. and Leahy, M., 2015. Defining social inclusion of
people with intellectual and developmental disabilities: An ecological model of social
networks and community participation. Research in developmental disabilities, 38, pp.18-29.
Melnick, E.R., Hess, E.P., Guo, G., Breslin, M., Lopez, K., Pavlo, A.J., Abujarad, F.,
Powsner, S.M. and Post, L.A., 2017. Patient-centered decision support: formative usability
evaluation of integrated clinical decision support with a patient decision aid for minor head
injury in the emergency department. Journal of medical Internet research, 19(5), p.e174.