Discuss how risk and/or protective factors affect health.

Refer to the paper 2 assessment criteria when awarding marks. These can be found under the “Your tests” tab > supplemental materials.

The command term “discuss” requires candidates to offer a considered review of how risk and/or protective factors affect health. Candidates may choose to discuss health in general or might refer to a specific health problem. Either approach is acceptable.

Aspects of health likely to be addressed are:

• stress
• addiction
• obesity
• chronic pain
• sexual health.

Risk/protective factors may include, but are not limited to:

• socioeconomic factors
• level of peer support
• family factors
• health beliefs
• resiliency traits.

Relevant studies may include, but are not limited to:

• Unger and Chen’s (1999) study in risk and protective factors related to adolescent smoking initiation
• Haines, Neumark-Sztainer, Wall, and Story’s (2012) study of risk and protective factors of adolescent weight gain
• Yi, Poudel, and Yasouka’s (2010) study of the role of risk and protective factors in risky sexual behaviours in Cambodian high school students.

Discussion may include, but is not limited to:

• methodological and ethical considerations related to the research into risk and/or protective factors of health
• how the findings of research have been interpreted and applied
• theoretical issues
• assumptions and biases
• areas of uncertainty
• supporting and/or contradictory evidence
• cultural and gender considerations.

Candidates may discuss a small number of risk/protective factors in order to demonstrate depth of knowledge, or may discuss a larger number of risk/protective factors in order to demonstrate breadth of knowledge. Both approaches are equally acceptable.

Candidates addressing this question chose to focus on stress, addiction or obesity. Most candidates managed to provide evidence of knowledge but a few candidates chose to write general responses by discussing stress or obesity but not risk and/or protective factors related to them. Critical thinking here was fairly limited as it clearly did not fit the question.