Promoting and Maintaining Health

Purpose: The purpose of this project is for you to apply what you have learned to a life-like situation. In this project, you will create a PowerPoint presentation with narration (voice recording) to achieve a specific goal with a specific population. Your presentation must incorporate current theory as well as known and effective methods of behavior change.

Topic: Health psychologists work in a variety of settings, but the goal is always the promotion and maintenance of health using a biopsychosocial approach. Below are some examples of topics that would be appropriate for your presentation:
 Health Care Policy – You have been hired by the U.S. Department of Health to Develop a campaign aimed at reducing obesity in children. Your target audience is elementary school children.
 Managed Health Care – You have been hired by an elder care health facility to develop a program highlighting the importance of exercise in the elderly. Your target audience is sedentary elderly with diverse mobility.
 Genetic Testing – You are working in a clinic that provides genetic testing for breast cancer. You are asked to develop a program for working with clients and how to help cope with their risk status and how to change risk-relevant behaviors. Your target audience is women between the ages of 35 to 70 years.
 Organizational Health – You are hired by a major company to help reduce absenteeism. Your job is to create a presentation that provides strategies about how to manage stress in a high-stress occupation. Your target audience is company employees who frequently miss work due to complications of stress.
 Community Health –You have been contracted by the State Department of Health care to improve health care utilization to people of low SES and minority status. Your target audience is individuals of low SES and minority status who underutilize available health care options.

After considering your topic and your audience, decide what approach would work best to achieve your goal, e.g. an attitudinal approach or a cognitive behavioral approach. You should be clear about what you goal is. Are you trying to modify a health-risk behavior that is already in place (e.g., smoking), are you trying to prevent a health-risk behavior from occurring (drug use, obesity), are you trying to enhance coping skills (stress, terminal illness)?
Design: Your presentation should be structured around the following five components:

1. What is the purpose or goal of the presentation?
2. What is the most effective way in which to reach your target audience?
3. What does your audience need to know about the topic?
4. What intervention (based upon known research findings) is best suited to achieve your goal?
5. Is my presentation based upon a biopsychosocial model?

Sample Solution