Reducing Healthcare Costs through the Application of Social Learning Theory

Abstract

A key means to lower health care costs and health care system usage is by increasing the degree to which the population is physically active through regular exercises. According to Bandura’s social learning theory, a key determinant of behavior is that learned behaviors include a cognitive component in which a subject models or imitates responses. Similarly, it seems reasonable to merge the goal of increasing desired physical activity behaviors or exercise and social learning through one’s parents or to one’s own children, as the case may be. In this experiment, we conduct a survey to determine the extent to which one’s parent’s behaviors in this regards are related to the respondent’s and, correspondingly, the extent to which the respondent’s current behaviors are related to their grown children, as applicable. Our efforts indicated that there is not a statistically significant correlation between the respondent’s behaviors and that of their parents or children.

Introduction

The rising costs of healthcare in developed nations such as the United States in particular as well as Western Europe and a nation such as Japan are a top concern for academicians, politicians and the general citizenry. As such, any variable shown to have a statistically significant effect on health would therefore have an effect on these corresponding costs and thus could have major economic and life quality impact. One of the key variables of one’s health is the extent to which a person is either regularly physically active or exercises. “Regular physical activity”, for the purpose of this study, will be defined in the same way the United States Surgeon General (1996) defined in her recommendation that the public should accumulate at least 30 minutes of moderate physical activity on most days of the week.

Utilizing concepts from Bandura’s sociallearning theory, it is a reasonable proposition that the likelihood of a subject choosing to model “exercise” behaviors would be influenced by the extent that they had been exposed to such behaviors, accepted them as “normal” and consequently imitated them. This has potential significant impact on health care costs and health related behavior in that one could simultaneously explain, predict and potentially introduce conditions in which more people would be physically active or exercise. Based on the assumption that modeling plays a significant role in the performance of these behaviors, the following research question was postulated:

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By admin in Essays on November 3, 2016