Physicians interested in encouraging health promotion activities among their patients have been hampered by the lack of handy references summarizing the health promotion literature and outlining the various strategies and techniques that can be used by individual practitioners. This clearly written and readable book sets out to fill that void.
The book gives an overview of epidemiologic, biomedical, statistical, behavioral, and educational principles of health promotion and information about specific applications (in this case, nutrition, weight control, exercise, alcohol use, invalidating tobacco, the appropriate use of drugs, rest and sleep, and stress management). A distinction is made between health promotion activities, ie, efforts to influence patients' health behaviors, and preventive medicine activities, ie, efforts to prevent or detect early specific medical conditions. It is important to understand that the book does not cover the latter.
The first section covers principles of health promotion. The chapter on the Health Hazard Appraisal