Health Communication & Intervention

  • Humans are bad at assessing risks

  • The more healthy behaviors you do, the lower likelihood you have to die in the next copuple years

    • The more you engage in those health behaviors later on when you age the more beneficial they are

2 Ways to think about Health Communication

  • How should your frame your health communication? → Framing

  • What makes a message persuasive? → Persuasion

2 way to talk about the same info

  • Gain Frame: Looking at the benefits with behaving a certain way

    • An advantage of getting a mammogram early means more treatment options

    • “Saved”

  • Loss Frame: Emphasis of the cost of not behaving a certain way

    • A disadvantage of bot getting a mammogram early means less treatment options

    • “Die”

  • Making a decision, the frame really matters

  • Influences how people make decisions

    • When things are framed as gains → we are afraid of the risks (Risk-Averse)

      • People like the certainty

    • When things are framed as risks → we become risk seeking (Risk-Seeking)

      • People become risky in their decisions

Example of getting a Patients to get or not get a surgery

  • “I know you have a 32% chance of dying if you have the surgery”

    • Loss frame, you are uncertain, less likely to get the surgery

    • “Dying” → Loss Frame

  • “I know you have 68% chance of living if you have the surgery”

    • You like the certainty of living → gain frame

    • “Living” → Gain Frame

Framing and Heath Behaviors

  • Illness Detection Behaviors → Risky → Loss Frame Better to Use

    • Considered Risky since you might find something bad

    • ex. Getting tested

    • You find a potential for losing since you might have the disease

    • People become risk seeking

  • Health Promotion Behaviors → Certain → Gain Frame Better

    • Considered certain since there is health benefits

    • exercise, diets

    • There are potentials for gaining

    • Risk- Averse

Message Framing and The Type of Person you are

  • Approach Oriented → Actively seek out the positive things

    • Prefer gain framed messages

      • If you take ur meds, here are the benefits

  • Avoidance Oriented → Wanting to avoid negative things

    • Prefer a loss framed message

      • You should take ur meds or your disease would get worse

Aspects of Persuasive Communications

  • Speaker Credibility

  • Message appealing to Reasoning and Emotion

  • Message appealing Appeal to Fear

Aspects of the Speaker → Makes us more Persuaded

  • Expert

  • Trustworthy

  • Doesnt have something to gain

  • Not Paid

  • No other vested interest

Reason v. Emotion

  • You need to know something about the person in order to know what strategy to use

    • Highly Involved → Appeal to Reason

      • Done research on breast cancer risk

    • Uninvolved → Appeal to Emotion

      • “do you want to live to see ur granddaughter get married?”

Fear

  • Too Much Fear

    • Anxiety

    • Defensiveness

    • Will backfire

  • Too Little Fear

    • No Motivation

    • Boredom