The health belief model (HBM) was one of the first, and remains one of the best known social cognition models. It is a health behavior change and psychological model developed by Irwin M. Rosenstock in 1966 for studying and promoting the uptake of health services. The model was furthered by Becker and colleagues in the 1970s and 1980s. Subsequent amendments to the model were made as late as 1988, to accommodate evolving evidence generated within the health community about the role that knowledge and perceptions play in personal responsibility. Originally, the model was designed to predict behavioural response to the treatment received by acutely or chronically ill patients, but in more recent years the model has been used to predict more general health behaviors. The HBM suggests that your belief in a personal threat together with your belief in the effectiveness of the proposed behaviour will predict the likelihood of that behaviour.
An example of the health belief model would involve an individuals' opinion about a certain disease and the behavior they encompass to the disease. Mary commutes to work everyday. It is flu season and the virus is rampant. Mary believes that she will not catch the virus because she has a strong immune system. During lunch, she does not feel the need to wash her hands. Mary's behavior to the fact she believes she is immune to the virus would likely lead to her contracting the disease.
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Famous quotes containing the words health, belief and/or model:
“The same soil is good for men and for trees. A man’s health requires as many acres of meadow to his prospect as his farm does loads of muck.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There is a place where we are always alone with our own mortality, where we must simply have something greater than ourselves to hold onto—God or history or politics or literature or a belief in the healing power of love, or even righteous anger.... A reason to believe, a way to take the world by the throat and insist that there is more to this life than we have ever imagined.”
—Dorothy Allison (b. 1949)
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—Estelle Shuster (b. c. 1923)