Influences on Health Decision Making

Topic Area: Influences such as SES, culture, technology and the media on outcomes of adolescent behaviour

Rationale: Students understand that their decisions are influenced by a range of factors in terms of their health and risk taking behaviours. Knowledge of the influencing factors can help students make the right decisions for their own health and safety. Creating a board game allows students to practice making the right decisions in a non threatening environment. Students refine interacting skills as they take on roles within the group and use problem solving skills to develop and critique situations and responses for the cards or questions used in the games. Students evaluate other games and their application of the influences on health decision making to develop higher order thinking.

Outcomes: 5.7 A student analyses influences on health decision-making and develops strategies to promote health and safe behaviours.

SLA:
• influences on health decision-making and risk behaviours
– individual factors, eg values and attitudes
– sociocultural factors, eg family, peers, gender, culture
– political factors, eg laws and regulations
– economic factors, eg personal and community
– environmental factors, eg pollution, weather, built environment

SLT:
• recognise that health decisions and risk behaviours are not simply an individual responsibility but are shaped by a range of influences
• analyse the range of influences that impact on an individual’s ability to behave in healthy and safe ways in relation to:
– mental health
– healthy food habits
– drug use
– sexual health
– road use
– personal safety
– physical activity
– accessing support services

Skills: planning, interacting, decision making, problem solving.

Learning experience:
Students play the ‘Tufty board game’ that teaches children about road safety and behaviour (http://www.kidsera.com/links/0423.htm ). Students must then create and plan a board game based on health decision making and risk behaviours for 15 year olds. Students are in pairs or groups and choose one of the following topics:
– mental health
– healthy food habits
– drug use
– sexual health
– road use
– personal safety
– physical activity
– accessing support services

They then use individual factors, socio cultural factors, political factors, economic factors and environmental factors to create questions or cards where a correct answer or positive health decision results in players moving forward in a game and a negative health decision or incorrect answer will send a person back in the game. For eg: a card may read “a friend is pressuring you to try a cigarette, what factor is influencing your health decision making?” or “a friend is pressuring you into having sex but you want to wait until you are married, what is your decision and what factors influenced it?”.

Once the board games are created, they are set up as a circuit and groups rotate to play each game.

Equipment:
Cardboard, scissors, textas, dice

Stimulus
‘Tufty board game’

Discussion Points:
· health decisions and risk behaviours are not simply an individual responsibility but are shaped by a range of influences
·Influences on health decision making -
. individual factors, eg values and attitudes
. sociocultural factors, eg family, peers, gender, culture
. political factors, eg laws and regulations
. economic factors, eg personal and community
. environmental factors, eg pollution, weather, built environment
· What board games worked best? Critique and evaluate.
· What types of questions were used, open or closed?