Health and Behavior

Résumé du livre

Abstract: Informed assessment of more than 400 leaders in the biomedical and behavioral sciences are assembled into a report on problems of great importance to the health field. The scientists examined the extent of behavior-related disease and disability and evaluated scientific approaches to understanding, treating, and preventing such illnesses. Each chapter highlights research directions that are especially promising lines of inquiry. The greatest risk factors for illness in the US are related to individual behavior or "lifestyle"; cigarette smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, unhealthful dietary habits, use of illicit drugs, reckless driving, nonadherence to effective medication regimes, and maladaptive responses to social pressures. The report focuses on such behaviors and on diseases that the biobehavioral sciences can usefully address. Consideration is given to the whole gamut of health science policy but no specific recommendations are made. Appended is a list of conferences from which the report was derived and a list of the participants. (emc).