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    Rights statement: © 2014 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The moral rights of the named author(s) have been asserted.

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Theories of practice and public health: understanding (un)healthy practices

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Theories of practice and public health: understanding (un)healthy practices. / Blue, Stanley; Shove, Elizabeth; Carmona, Chris et al.
In: Critical Public Health, Vol. 26, No. 1, 01.01.2015, p. 36-50.

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

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Blue S, Shove E, Carmona C, Kelly MP. Theories of practice and public health: understanding (un)healthy practices. Critical Public Health. 2015 Jan 1;26(1):36-50. Epub 2014 Nov 12. doi: 10.1080/09581596.2014.980396

Author

Blue, Stanley ; Shove, Elizabeth ; Carmona, Chris et al. / Theories of practice and public health : understanding (un)healthy practices. In: Critical Public Health. 2015 ; Vol. 26, No. 1. pp. 36-50.

Bibtex

@article{d6679a6f568a436fa19518b47129d2ed,
title = "Theories of practice and public health: understanding (un)healthy practices",
abstract = "Psychological understandings and individualistic theories of human behaviourand behaviour change have dominated both academic research and interventionsat the {\textquoteleft}coalface{\textquoteright} of public health. Meanwhile, efforts to understand persistentinequalities in health point to structural factors, but fail to showexactly how these translate into the daily lives (and hence health) of differentsectors of the population. In this paper, we suggest that social theories ofpractice provide an alternative paradigm to both approaches, informing significantlynew ways of conceptualising and responding to some of the mostpressing contemporary challenges in public health. We introduce and discussthe relevance of such an approach with reference to tobacco smoking, focusingon the life course of smoking as a practice, rather than on the characteristicsof individual smokers or on broad social determinants of health. Thismove forces us to consider the material and symbolic elements of whichsmoking is comprised, and to follow the ways in which these elements havechanged over time. Some of these developments have to do with the relationbetween smoking and other practices such as drinking alcohol, relaxing andsocialising. We suggest that intervening in the future of smoking depends, inpart, on understanding the nature of these alliances, and how sets of practicesco-evolve. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of taking socialpractices as the central focus of public health policy, commenting on the benefitsof such a paradigmatic turn, and on the challenges that this presents forestablished methods, policies and programmes.",
keywords = "social practice, public health, behaviour change, smoking",
author = "Stanley Blue and Elizabeth Shove and Chris Carmona and Kelly, {Michael P.}",
note = "{\textcopyright} 2014 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The moral rights of the named author(s) have been asserted. ",
year = "2015",
month = jan,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1080/09581596.2014.980396",
language = "English",
volume = "26",
pages = "36--50",
journal = "Critical Public Health",
issn = "0958-1596",
publisher = "Routledge",
number = "1",

}

RIS

TY - JOUR

T1 - Theories of practice and public health

T2 - understanding (un)healthy practices

AU - Blue, Stanley

AU - Shove, Elizabeth

AU - Carmona, Chris

AU - Kelly, Michael P.

N1 - © 2014 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The moral rights of the named author(s) have been asserted.

PY - 2015/1/1

Y1 - 2015/1/1

N2 - Psychological understandings and individualistic theories of human behaviourand behaviour change have dominated both academic research and interventionsat the ‘coalface’ of public health. Meanwhile, efforts to understand persistentinequalities in health point to structural factors, but fail to showexactly how these translate into the daily lives (and hence health) of differentsectors of the population. In this paper, we suggest that social theories ofpractice provide an alternative paradigm to both approaches, informing significantlynew ways of conceptualising and responding to some of the mostpressing contemporary challenges in public health. We introduce and discussthe relevance of such an approach with reference to tobacco smoking, focusingon the life course of smoking as a practice, rather than on the characteristicsof individual smokers or on broad social determinants of health. Thismove forces us to consider the material and symbolic elements of whichsmoking is comprised, and to follow the ways in which these elements havechanged over time. Some of these developments have to do with the relationbetween smoking and other practices such as drinking alcohol, relaxing andsocialising. We suggest that intervening in the future of smoking depends, inpart, on understanding the nature of these alliances, and how sets of practicesco-evolve. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of taking socialpractices as the central focus of public health policy, commenting on the benefitsof such a paradigmatic turn, and on the challenges that this presents forestablished methods, policies and programmes.

AB - Psychological understandings and individualistic theories of human behaviourand behaviour change have dominated both academic research and interventionsat the ‘coalface’ of public health. Meanwhile, efforts to understand persistentinequalities in health point to structural factors, but fail to showexactly how these translate into the daily lives (and hence health) of differentsectors of the population. In this paper, we suggest that social theories ofpractice provide an alternative paradigm to both approaches, informing significantlynew ways of conceptualising and responding to some of the mostpressing contemporary challenges in public health. We introduce and discussthe relevance of such an approach with reference to tobacco smoking, focusingon the life course of smoking as a practice, rather than on the characteristicsof individual smokers or on broad social determinants of health. Thismove forces us to consider the material and symbolic elements of whichsmoking is comprised, and to follow the ways in which these elements havechanged over time. Some of these developments have to do with the relationbetween smoking and other practices such as drinking alcohol, relaxing andsocialising. We suggest that intervening in the future of smoking depends, inpart, on understanding the nature of these alliances, and how sets of practicesco-evolve. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of taking socialpractices as the central focus of public health policy, commenting on the benefitsof such a paradigmatic turn, and on the challenges that this presents forestablished methods, policies and programmes.

KW - social practice

KW - public health

KW - behaviour change

KW - smoking

U2 - 10.1080/09581596.2014.980396

DO - 10.1080/09581596.2014.980396

M3 - Journal article

VL - 26

SP - 36

EP - 50

JO - Critical Public Health

JF - Critical Public Health

SN - 0958-1596

IS - 1

ER -