Over the last year, I worked with Andrea Vastis, the Senior Director for Public Education at the National Fire Protection Association, to write fire prevention and life safety messages to share on Nextdoor, which you can find in our Content Library.
Early this month, while we were crafting "Winter holiday safety tips," Andrea brought up something I found fascinating, so I asked her to make an impromptu video about The Health Belief Model (HBM) model; watch below.
Given that many communicators who use Nextdoor for Public Agencies are interested in behavior change, Andrea's insights about the model could help you select and promote the most relevant and compelling messages to share with your community.
(NOTE: The NFPA Educational Messages Desk Reference for Fire Service and Fire and Life Safety Educators 2020 Edition is a compendium of the most up-to-date, vetted messaging for a variety of fire and life safety topics. These can be tailored to your community. Download the “EMAC” at www.nfpa.org/emac)
While I am not an expert on behavioral health, there are known limitations to this model, but for Life Safety and Fire Prevention, there clearly is value in the model.
As you craft messages for Nextdoor, I invite you to consider asking yourself - Which constructs may apply to your communities, and how might you mitigate the limitations of the model?
The information below is taken from the Boston University School of Public Health web page.
According to the Boston University School of Public Health, The Health Belief Model (HBM) was developed in the early 1950s by social scientists at the U.S. Public Health Service to understand the failure of people to adopt disease prevention strategies or screening tests for the early detection of disease. Later uses of HBM were for patients' responses to symptoms and compliance with medical treatments. The HBM suggests that a person's belief in a personal threat of an illness or disease, together with a person's belief in the effectiveness of the recommended health behavior or action, will predict the likelihood the person will adopt the behavior.
The HBM derives from psychological and behavioral theory with the foundation that the two components of health-related behavior are 1) the desire to avoid illness or, conversely, get well if already ill; and 2) the belief that a specific health action will prevent or cure illness. Ultimately, an individual's course of action often depends on the person's perceptions of the benefits and barriers related to health behavior. There are six constructs of the HBM.
There are several limitations of the HBM which limit its utility in public health. Limitations of the model include the following:
The HBM is more descriptive than explanatory and does not suggest a strategy for changing health-related actions. In preventive health behaviors, early studies showed that perceived susceptibility, benefits, and barriers were consistently associated with the desired health behavior; perceived severity was less often associated with the desired health behavior. The individual constructs are useful, depending on the health outcome of interest. Still, for the most effective use of the model, it should be integrated with other models that account for the environmental context and suggest strategies for change.