This article presents an introduction to the Health Belief Model (HBM). The HBM states that the perception of a personal health behavior threat is influenced by at least three factors: general health values, interest and concern about health; specific beliefs about vulnerability to a particular health threat; and beliefs about the consequences of the health problem. Once an individual perceives a threat to his health and is simultaneously cued to action, if his perceived benefits outweighs his perceived costs, then the individual is most likely to undertake the recommended preventive health action. Key words: health promotion, health belief model, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, cues to action, self-efficacy. Content available only in Romanian.

Health Belief Model

Despite being recognized as one of the most successful public health measures, vaccination is perceived as unsafe and unnecessary by a growing number of individuals. Lack of confidence in vaccines is now considered a threat to the success of vaccination programs. Vaccine hesitancy is believed to be responsible for decreasing vaccine coverage and an increasing risk of vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks and epidemics. This review provides an overview of the phenomenon of vaccine hesitancy. First, we will characterize vaccine hesitancy and suggest the possible causes of the apparent increase in vaccine hesitancy in the developed world. Then we will look at determinants of individual decision-making about vaccination.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.4161/hv.24657

Vaccine hesitancy: An overview

The World Health Organization has declared the rapid spread of COVID-19 around the world a global public health emergency. It is well-known that the spread of the disease is influenced by people’s ...

/pdf/risk-perceptions-of-covid-19-around-the-world-2lsrxkfia8.pdf

Risk perceptions of COVID-19 around the world

The extent to which member states transpose EU directives in a timely fashion is often argued to be strongly associated with the general effectiveness of national bureaucracies. But what kind of institutional solutions ensure better performance? This paper examines the patterns and effects of departmental oversight across 28 ministries in Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. In mapping the strength of oversight, it relies on around 90 structured interviews regarding the rules-in-use on transposition planning, legal review and monitoring of deadlines. The analysis of the impact of departmental oversight is based on an original dataset of over 300 directives with transposition deadlines between January 2005 and December 2008.

On the european union

Acceptability of a COVID-19 vaccine among adults in the United States: How many people would get vaccinated?

Purpose A new strain of H1N1 influenza, also known as swine flu was confirmed in the UK in May 2009 and has spread to over 100 countries around the world causing the World Health Organization to declare a global flu pandemic. The primary objectives of this review are to identify the key demographic and attitudinal determinants of three types of protective behaviour during a pandemic: preventive, avoidant, and management of illness behaviours, in order to describe conceptual frameworks in which to better understand these behaviours and to inform future communications and interventions in the current outbreak of swine flu and subsequent influenza pandemics. Methods Web of Science and PubMed databases were searched for references to papers on severe acute respiratory syndrome, avian influenza/flu, H5N1, swine influenza/flu, H1N1, and pandemics. Forward searching of the identified references was also carried out. In addition, references were gleaned from an expert panel of the Behaviour and Communications sub-group of the UK Scientific Pandemic Influenza Advisory Group. Papers were included if they reported associations between demographic factors, attitudes, and a behavioural measure (reported, intended, or actual behaviour). Results Twenty-six papers were identified that met the study inclusion criteria. The studies were of variable quality and most lacked an explicit theoretical framework. Most were cross-sectional in design and therefore not predictive over time. The research shows that there are demographic differences in behaviour: being older, female and more educated, or non-White, is associated with a higher chance of adopting the behaviours. There is evidence that greater levels of perceived susceptibility to and perceived severity of the diseases and greater belief in the effectiveness of recommended behaviours to protect against the disease are important predictors of behaviour. There is also evidence that greater levels of state anxiety and greater trust in authorities are associated with behaviour. Conclusions The findings from this review can be broadly explained by theories of health behaviour. However, theoretically driven prospective studies are required to further clarify the relationship between demographic factors, attitudes, and behaviour. The findings suggest that intervention studies and communication strategies should focus on particular demographic groups and on raising levels of perceived threat of the pandemic disease and belief in the effectiveness of measures designed to protect against it.

/pdf/demographic-and-attitudinal-determinants-of-protective-3hta66e9xw.pdf

Alison Bish

Papers

Demographic and attitudinal determinants of protective behaviours during a pandemic: A review

Factors associated with uptake of vaccination against pandemic influenza: a systematic review.