Social climate analyses measure the social, behavioral, and contextual influences on health and health behaviors.
Social Climate Analysis is an approach developed to understand and change healthy and unhealthy behaviors. We developed this approach from the perspective that these behaviors are simply too complex to understand in terms of a single determinant. Emotions, beliefs, social norms, social context, prior behaviors - as well as a plethora of other factors - must all be considered. This perspective is not a new one. Kurt Lewin's concept of 'Life Space' and Fishbein and Ajzen's Theory of Reasoned Action are just two of the many perspectives to include numerous social influences in their examinations of behavior. SCA takes this perspective a step further. Not only must the study of health and unhealthy behaviors include many social influences, it should also examine these influences from several interdisciplinary perspectives. To illustrate, we have applied the SCA to better understand cigarette smoking. Sociology provides the institutional framework for organizing the social psychological influences on smoking behaviors, while Social Psychology provides theories for understanding interpersonal and situational influences. Moreover, economics informs the impact of state cigarette taxes and other policy interventions on smoking and physicians can present opportunities for clinical interventions.
Social Climate Analysis Laboratory