Module Components

• Overview
• Assignments

Topics

• Assessing Health Status
• Addressing the Challenge
• Modifiable Lifestyle Risk Factors
  • Smoking
  • High Blood Pressure
  • Elevated Serum Cholesterol
  • Diet, Overweight, Obesity and Physical Inactivity
  • Impact of Multiple Risk Factors
  • Impact of Multiple Risk Factors

NRSG 780 - Health Promotion and Population Health

Module 2: Determinants of Health

Modifiable Lifestyle Risk Factors

Healthy People emphasizes that improvements in the health of Americans will not be achieved through increasing the number of medical services but through greater efforts designed to change lifestyles to promote health, reduce risk and prevent disease.  When we begin to study modifiable lifestyle risk factors for the leading causes of death, it is important to note that many are risk factors for more than one cause of death. As a result, efforts aimed at reducing a single risk factor, such as smoking or obesity, will have an impact on reducing the risk of heart disease, cancer and stroke.

This table shows that many of the major modifiable risk factors for the three leading causes of death in the U.S. are identical.

The next five subtopics in this module will provide a snapshot of the major modifiable lifestyle risk factors for the leading causes of death:

• Smoking
• High Blood Pressure
• Elevated Blood Cholesterol
• Diet, Overweight, Obesity and Physical Inactivity
• Impact of Multiple Risk Factors

Scientific evidence will be highlighted that shows reducing these risk factors reduces premature morbidity and mortality and that we have known this for over fifty years.