The Health Belief Model: Theory Of Planned Behavior

The Health Belief Model (HBM) is one of the first and broadly used theory of health behavior. (3)see Abraham and Sheeran, 2005, for a recent review).It was developed to understand peoples’ beliefs about whether they are at risk for a certain disease or health problem, and their perceptions to seek prevention mechanisms or early detection and treatment (50,20,36,93).The HBM states that health behavior is constructed by two cognitions: perceptions of illness threat and evaluation of behaviors to counteract this threat. Threat perceptions are based on perceived susceptibility of the individual to the illness and the perceived severity of the consequences of the illness for the individual. Similarly, evaluation of possible responses involves consideration

The Health Belief Model (Picture taken from Mark Conner)
The HBM has also inspired a range of successful behavior change interventions (Jones et al, 1987).The common-sense operationalization that HBM uses including key beliefs related to decisions about health behaviors is taken as a strength. The psychological readiness to take specific action and the extent to which a particular course of action is believed to be beneficial in reducing the threat are the two important variables of HBM. (19)(Rosenstock1966:98)
Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB)
The Theory of Planned Behavior (2)TPB; Ajzen, 1991) was developed by social psychologists and has been widely applied to understanding health behaviors (6)Conner and Sparks, 2005). It specifies the factors that determine that individual’s decision to perform a particular behavior. TPB added “perceived behavioral control” to the earlier Theory of Reasoned Action (1)( Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980). The TPB explains that the key determinants of behavior are intention to engage in that behavior and perceived behavioral control over that behavior. Intentions in the TPB represent a person’s motivation or conscious plan or decision to exert effort to perform the

To have a good plan in health and behavioral change it is necessary to recognize the ethics involved in health interventions and be familiar with the ethics framework for public health action, understand the importance of planning models to guide the program planning process, describe the PRECEDE-PROCEED planning model and describe the phases and steps of program planning to guide the approach to health behavior change interventions. Planning must be a systematic process of inquiry that respects and engages key stakeholders from the very beginning and recognizes that individuals and communities deserve better than