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Health related behavior

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  1. Question for discussion:

    How do we explicitly define the idea of 'health-related behavior'? Arguably, all behavior impacts health, so this idea must be narrower.

    Here is the | Health related behavior (observable entity) | sub hieararchy:

    Reviewing the concepts here, and thinking more broadly about the kinds of things that clinicians may want to document, this concept seems to encompass three distinct ideas:

    1. Behaviors about which there are explicit health guidelines or recommendations based on scientific evidence (e.g., WHO or national guidelines regarding use of drugs, exercise, nutrition, etc.)
    2. Behaviors related to explicit guidance by healthcare professionals (e.g., providers treating a person or responsible for overseeing a person's care)
    3. Behaviors a person engages in with the goal of optimizing their health (this may be different than behavior related to explicit health guidelines or guidance of healthcare professionals with whom the person is receiving care; e.g., use of supplements, diets, etc. the person is reading about in health magazines, new literature, etc. -- stuff that's too new or to questionable to be included in formal health guidelines)

    With the above  in mind, the following jump out as potential changes needed to this sub hiearchy:

    • The following concepts appear to be clinican findings and therefore not appropriate for inclusion in this hierarchy:
    Excessive sun exposure (observable entity)
    Excessive ultra violet ray exposure (observable entity)
    • There are several substance use related concepts that are direct child concepts of | Health-related behavior (observable entity) but actually have the following parent-child relationships:
    Substance use behavior (observable entity)
           Details of alcohol drinking behavior (observable entity)
           Details of drug misuse behavior (observable entity)
          Tobacco use and exposure (observable entity)
                   Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence total score (observable entity)
    • The following concept is too broad  (although there may be specific child concepts that do belong in this hieararchy)


    Detail of sexuality and sexual activity (observable entity)


    Additional discussion points:

    • Do concepts related to behavior that affects the health of others  (e.g., sexually predatory behavior, not protecting others from a transmissable infectious disease) represent health-related behavior?  Or does health related behavior refer specifically to behavior related to one's own health?


    • What about this concept? There is health guidance around this, yet not all screen time behavior is health related ??
    Video, television or computer screen time (observable entity)
  2. Some additional notes: