Approaches of behavior change in health education

The ultimate goal of health education and promotion program is to bring voluntary behavior modification among the community members. Certain behaviors changes may be natural while others are planned changes.

Natural Changes

When changes occur because of natural events in the community around us, we often change without thinking much about it.Some changes take place because of natural events or processes such as age-sex related behaviors. E.g. Eating clay during pregnancy

Planned Changes

We make plans to improve our lives or to survive for that matter, and we act accordingly. Example: plan to stop smoking or drinking, plan to become a health professional. When changes occur deliberately and/or planned. Planned change in behavior can be faster or slower depending on the response of the acceptor and adapter of the behavior.

E.g. Mr Kebede chews a big bundle of chat each day. But now he is experiencing saviour constipation and loss of appetite. Consequently, he decides to quit chat chewing. Then he plans to decrease progressively by consuming half a bundle of the previous day.

So planned behavior change approaches can be classified into two.

a) The persuasion approach -deliberate attempt to influence the other persons to do what we want them to do (directive approach)

b) The informed decision making approach-giving people information, problem-solving and decision-making skills to make decisions but leaving the actual choice to the people. For example, let us take the case of family planning methods. Many health educators feel that instead of using persuasion it is better to work with communities to develop their problem-solving skills and provide the information to help them make informed choices. However, in situations where there is serious threat such as an epidemic, and the actions needed are clear cut, it might be considered justified to persuade people to adopt specific behavior changes.