The Role of Theory in Developing Effective Health Communications

Abstract

This study attempts to show the relevance of behavioral theory for developing communications designed to promote healthy and/or to prevent or alter unhealthy behaviors. After describing an integrative model of behavioral prediction, the model's implications for designing persuasive communications are considered. Using data from a study on smoker's intentions to continue smoking and to quit, it is shown how the theory helps identify the critical beliefs underlying these or other intentions. Finally, it is argued that although behavioral theory can help identify the beliefs that should be targeted in a persuasive communication, our ability to change these beliefs will ultimately rest on communication theory.During the past decade, there has been a growing recognition of the usefulness of behavioral theory in the development of behavior-change interventions (see, e.g., National Institutes of Health, 1997). Theories of behavioral prediction and behavior change are useful because they provide a framework to help identify the determinants of any given behavior, an essential first step in the development of successful interventions to change that behavior. Clearly, the more one knows about the determinants of a given behavior, the more likely it is that one can develop an effective communication or other type of intervention to reinforce or change that behavior. The purpose of this study was to show the relevance of behavioral theory for developing communications designed to promote healthy and/or to prevent or alter unhealthy behaviors.Although there are many theories of behavioral prediction such as the Theory of Planned

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