Health Belief Model Essay

Since we have illness in the world there has to be health. This is an objective fact. The opposite of being healthy is being sick and it holds true conversely as well. Despite this well known fact there has been a controversial issue on what exactly ‘health’ is. For centuries people have attempted to define the meaning of health. According to the World Health Organization “[...] health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” (WHO, 1948, p. 1) Though this definition is the most accepted worldwide interpretation the truth is the meaning of health is subjective. In some ethnic groups being healthy means being physically free of illness dismissing the factors of emotional

Others who could being detrimentally ill but refuse to admit they are ill because their perceived seriousness of the illness is low because they feel ‘well’ which is their only definition of health. In my opinion, based on Becker’s Health Belief Model, health begins with the self; if a person believes they are in sound health mentally, physically, emotionally and socially they count as healthy.

The Health Belief Model is one of the most referred to models of health to promote wellness among populations. “The Health Belief Model, social learning theory (recently relabelled social cognitive theory), self-efficacy, and locus of control have all been applied with varying success to problems of explaining, predicting, and influencing behavior” (Rosenstock, Strecher, Becker, 1988, p. 175) According to Becker’s model ‘health’ begins with an individual 's perceptions. The individual 's perceptions are broken down into two branches

After being able to convince the population of doing so we move to the next level which include modifying factors. When promoting health to a community we have to take into account that each community has different needs which is addressed with modifying factors. For instance, if the importance of avoiding obesity by eating healthy is preached to a community where McDonald’s is the cheaper food option and there is minimal access to fresh produce chances the same way it is preached to a community that has a Whole Foods on each corner both populations will not have the same reaction. With the Health Belief model, these factors are taken into account with demographic variables, prior knowledge of the disease, sociopsychological variables thus leading to the perceived benefits and barriers. Perceived benefits occur when a person considers the usefulness in developing new behaviors in order to prevent the condition promoted to them and perceived barriers are obstacles the person believes will prevent them from making these changes. It would be my job as a health care professional to encourage them with cues of actions including pamphlets, reminder messages, mass media media campaigns to make chances to their health now that they know the condition can be