ABSTRACT
The 1979 Surgeon General’s Report on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention was the major impetus in the attempt to improve health because it highlighted the impact of unhealthy behaviors, such as smoking, substance abuse, diet and unhealthy eating, and physical inactivity on personal and community well-being. As empiricism uncovered the mounting association between smoking, lung cancer, and cardiovascular issues during the 1970s and ’80s, the popular view of health as merely “the absence of illness,” and the corresponding emphasis on medical interventions to remediate disease, began to be challenged (Herman, 2010). Resultantly, public health researchers adopted the broader conceptions of health as “complete physical, emotional, and social well-being.” Hence, the emphasis shifted from the remediation perspective to a prevention approach to health promotion based on behavior and lifestyle modifications. Soon thereafter, several studies documented the empirical linkages between a person’s routine health practices, stressful patterns of living, and their susceptibility to disease and premature death (Stokols, 1996).
