The Health Belief Model (HBM)

The Health Belief Model (HBM) was developed by Hochbaum, Rosenstock, and Kegels, psychologists working in the US Public Health Services. HBM is based on perceived susceptibility, severity, benefits, and barriers. This Model can be used to predict health behaviors, for example, the intention to vaccinate or comply with medical interventions. I chose this model because it is important to know if your patients will engage with healthy behavior or not. If it is the latter, you can implement education and resources to help them make healthy choices.

During the COVID pandemic, misinformation had an enormous impact on people following precautionary guidelines. Many people ignored recommendations due to their lack of accurate information. The HBM can raise awareness of the relationship between health, information, and the digital landscapes the public interacts with (Houlden et al., 2021).

I believe this model can address my topics because there are a lot of people who have been misinformed about healthy behaviors regarding mental health and childbirth. This model can help screen for those individuals and once identified, education and resources can be offered to encourage better health decisions.

Houlden, S., Hodson, J., Veletsianos, G., Reid, D., & Thompson-Wagner, C. (2021). The health belief model: How public health can address the misinformation crisis beyond COVID-19. Public health in practice (Oxford, England), 2, 100151. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhip.2021.100151