a thread on health behavior and why people do the things that they do

we have a lot of ways of understanding health behaviors—the ways individuals and groups (re)act and respond in ways that affect their health—and behavior change! as someone who studies social and behavioral health within a public health context, i know a bit about this.

one of the really important concepts in understanding health behavior is known as "perceived threat", which is a combination of two things: perceived severity (this thing is bad) and perceived susceptibility (this thing could happen to me).

the idea here is that behaviors around health are driven by our sense of impending trouble. in simple ways of thinking, we might say that if a person thinks something is bad enough and likely enough to happen to them, they might take an action to protect themself.

for example, if you perceive the flu as dangerous AND something you could get, you might be more likely to get a flu shot. if you don't think it's that bad and/or don't think you'll get the flu, you might not get the shot—even if you think it's safe or effective or good.

the model I want to talk about is the Protection Motivation Theory (PMT), developed to understand health behavior in response to appeals to fear (think about, like, most anti-smoking ads). people thought that fear would make people avoid the behavior, but it's not that simple!

in the PMT model, fear appeals trigger a process where people reflect on behaviors that might expose them to risk and behaviors that would protect them from risk, examining the costs and rewards of each. however all that mental math balances out drives their behaviors.

so say we're talking about partying ("maladaptive response") vs. social distancing ("adaptive response") during COVID. if a person knows that partying is fun AND thinks their severity of & vulnerability to COVID is low, their appraisal of the threat is pretty low.

that person may also not think social distancing is particularly necessary, esp. if perceived norms have shifted after a summer of slightly more safety, AND they may perceive high social costs to distancing (FOMO). their coping appraisal is also pretty low!

so in this hypothetical, we have someone who feels that the benefits of engaging in the "maladaptive" or potentially risky behavior outweigh the costs of undertaking the "adaptive" or protective behavior, which influences their decision-making.

what does this mean for health communication? we need to engage with both fear and coping. people need to understand that COVID is bad & can happen to them AND need to be presented w/ protective behaviors that give them the "rewards" of the things they'd rather be doing.

we need to understand what people want from the things they want to be doing, and help them find ways to get those things while keeping themselves & their communities safe. we need to create social norms of protection, care, and mutual aid. fear alone won't get us through this.

(this is me studying for my qualifying exams btw)