The Health Belief Model: How It Can Help You Stay Healthy

Prompt #1 

The health belief model suggests that a person’s belief in the personal threat of illness combined with the belief in the effectiveness of the recommended health behavior or a particular action predicts the likelihood of a person adopting a particular health behavior. The beliefs that people hold about health problems and their perceived benefits of the action, as well as the self-efficacy, determines the person’s engagement or non-engagement in a health promotion behavior. My belief on the need to have good physical health and promotion of physical fitness through exercise has enabled me to engage in activities that promote fitness. I believe that having good physical health is attained by engaging in physical activities and promoting fitness through exercise. My belief in fitness is that it helps keep the body active and prevent certain diseases such as obesity and heart diseases. As a result of this belief, I have increased my engagement to physical activity by attending gyms every evening to keep myself fit. The perceived risks and potential benefits were the major constructs that influence my daily physical activity. 

Prompt #2 

The constructs that had the greatest impact on the intention to vaccinate was the attitude towards the behavior and the subjective norms. The risks of perception were not related to the intention (Askelson et al., 2010). Each mother had a different attitude towards vaccination, and that is what influenced the intention to have their daughters vaccinated. This theory was not appropriate for use regarding the health issue because the major constructs such as risks perceptions, perceived benefits, and experience with the STIs were not related to the intention to vaccinate. The intention to vaccinate or adopt a particular health behavior should be determined by the individual's beliefs about the risks of not adopting the behavior and perceived benefits of behavior adoption. This was not the case with this theory, and instead, the attitude came out to be the strongest predictor of the intention. 

Reference 

Askelson, N. M., Campo, S., Lowe, J. B., Smith, S., Dennis, L. K., & Andsager, J. (2010). Using the theory of planned behavior to predict mothers’ intentions to vaccinate their daughters against HPV.  The Journal of School Nursing ,  26 (3), 194-202.