Book review |
Building Better Health. A Handbook Of Behavioural Change. David Jenkins. Pan American Health Organisation, 2003, pp. 378, $40.00. ISBN 92-75-11590-7.
Dr Daragh Fahey
Public Health Registrar London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
This book covers a large array of topics—ranging from the pathogenesis of rheumatic heart disease to the clinical signs of child abuse to practical tips and examples when engaging with and motivating communities. To add to the challenge, it covers both developed and developing world settings. The readability and appeal of the book is greatly enhanced by its frequent use of summary tables and bullet points. One of this book’s key strengths is its ability to reflect on generally accepted theories of disease prevention, health promotion, behaviour change and community intervention and use them to provide real world advice which can be used at the societal, community, family and individual levels.
Building Better Health is well structured and follows a logical sequence. It begins with some general principles of health promotion, disease prevention and community health intervention. The two sections, which follow, analyse the leading causes of death and disability in different age groups and how they can be prevented. Professor Jenkins then takes both a theoretical and a pragmatic approach in describing how one can change behaviours more effectively. He finishes with a summary of his beliefs and advice and a glance into the future. The layout makes this handbook easy to use for quick referencing. Readers can readily understand separate sections without having read the previous chapters.
The chapter on the principles and methods of behaviour change is particularly strong. It emphasizes that the primary obstacles to improving a community’s health are neither biological nor physical but cultural, social and interpersonal expectations and behaviours. The chapter stresses that we cannot impose health on anyone but recommends a bespoke, stepwise approach to intervening within the community—an approach which is based on theory, practice and commitment. There are some sensible tips on how to engage with the community and some excellent real-life examples of how to make the business case for community health programs to senior managers and commissioners.
Building Better Health is a very useful easy-to-read introductory text. It provides tried and trusted advice, plus hands-on tips, on how to influence community health behaviours. This advice is based on accepted theories of behaviour change and community intervention. At times, it tries to cover too wide a range of topics in too many settings. This results in occasional glaring omissions of detail, leaving the reader bewildered as to the overall objective of the book. Despite efforts to keep the language basic and readable to a broad audience, Building Better Health often falls into the trap of using unnecessary jargon.
This book provides extensive coverage and insightful analysis of a large range of topics, nicely combined with many hands-on tips on changing behaviours, preventing diseases and promoting health. I recommend it.
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