Health Belief Model Summary

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Summary Social psychologists created the Health Belief Model (HBM) to explain people’s failure to adhere to a program to prevent or detect a particular disease in the 1950s (Glanz, 2008, pgs. 46-50). Over the years since its creation this model has been adopted to study the response to symptoms and how it affects their behaviors (Glanz, 2008, pgs. 46-50). This model has various primary constructs to explain why people take action against illness in different ways such as prevention (Glanz, 2008, pgs. 46-50). Originally the HBM had five constructs: perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, and cues to actions (Glanz, 2008, pgs. 46-50). In the 1970s the last construct, self-efficacy was created by …show more content…
Perceived severity is a person’s feeling of the seriousness of getting a disease or leaving it untreated. It also explains the feelings of medical/clinical and social consequences of contracting the disease. The combination of perceived susceptibility and perceived severity is called perceived threat (Glanz, 2008, pgs. 46-50). Perceived benefits are a person’s beliefs about actions to reduce or prevent a disease or behavior. Perceived barriers are defined as anything that stands in the way of any action or behavioral change. Perceived barriers can include anything from educational level to income or religious/ cultural beliefs. Cues to actions are any triggers to start on increase actions. Things like media campaigns, posters, or even friends and family can be considered cues to action. The last construct self-efficacy is defined as the person’s confidence in their ability to successfully do the behavior or …show more content…
The first step to start or increase the action of eating a healthy and balanced diet is to either increase or create a perceived threat. A perceived threat includes both perceived susceptibility and perceived severity. The perceived susceptibility of not eating a healthy and balanced diet is the increased risk of being obese or contracting hypertension, diabetes or other diseases. The perceived severity is the person’s feeling of the medical/clinical and social consequences of having the disease. Together the risk of contracting the disease and the personal feelings of the consequences create the perceived threat. The perceived benefits of eating a health and balanced diet is not only living a long and healthy live, but a lower risk of contracting the diseases mention above as well as many other diseases. The perceived barriers for this behavior/action vary between the different ages. The perceived barriers from school age to young adulthood could be peer pressure against the preferred action while an older adult’s perceived barrier could be time or income. Perceived barriers across all ages could be education level. Cues to action for this behavior could be media campaigns about quick and healthy meals, family and friends that eat healthy and balance diets or lessons in cooking healthy meals and grocery shopping to eat healthy on a