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Health Belief Model
This is one of a number of different models of health behaviour.
This model attempts to predict health Behaviour and argues that the likeliness that a person will carry out a health Behaviour depends on the two assessments of evaluating the threat of illness or injury and costs and benefits of taking action.
This model was developed by Becker. The model Aims to predict when a person will engage in health behaviour, i.e. adhere to medical advice. According to the health belief model, the likelihood that individuals will take follow medical advice depends directly on two assessments that they make;
(i) Evaluating the threat
(ii) Cost-benefits analysis
(i) There are several factors that can influence a person's perceived threat of illness, including; perceived seriousness, perceived susceptibility, and cues to action. Also likely to affect this assessment are; demographic variables, socio-psychological Variables and structural variables. For example, if a person is overweight they might be in danger of developing a heart condition. The person would probably recognise this as a serious condition, but they might believe that because they are still quite young they are unlikely to develop this problem just yet. Therefore they might judge the threat as relatively low. Even if we judge the threat to be serious, we are only likely to act if we have some cue to action. This cue might be a mass media campaign, or it might be the death of a colleague with heart disease.
(ii) The cost-benefit assessment looks at whether the perceived benefits exceed the perceived barriers. The barriers might be financial (prescription charges are about to rise again,) situational (difficult to get to the health clinic), social (don't want to acknowledge getting old). The benefits might be improved health, relief from anxiety, and reducing health risks.
