Embedded health behaviors from adolescence to adulthood: The impact of tobacco

Prevention of cancer risk behaviors before they become embedded in an individual's life is crucial. Health-related behaviors should be viewed for their embeddedness, critical aspects of which are (a) the complexity of the behavior itself; (b) factors, both biological and. psychological, within the individual communicator; (c) and external situational or sociocultural factors. The more extensively a behavior is embedded, the more difficult it will, be to alter. Relative levels of embeddedness of the risk behavior and As entanglement with. other nonrisky behaviors will evolve and change throughout one's life course. Smoking across the life span provides an excellent example of a thoroughly integrated, embedded behavior. How smoking is embedded with other behaviors changes from adolescence, where biological factors may be less salient and habit strength less pronounced, through adulthood, where habit strength is greater but health concerns, are a more predictive factor. Researchers can produce more focused communication interventions by examining how health-endangering behaviors are embedded among benign behaviors or among other Potentially dangerous behaviioris -Ideally, the*pattem of health behavior embeddedness, should be analyzed Prior to developing intervention communication strategies.