It recognizes the fact that sometimes
wanting to change a health behavior isn't enough to actually make someone do
it, and incorporates two more elements into its estimations about what it
actually takes to get an individual to make the leap. These two elements are
cues
to action
and
self efficacy.
The key variables of
the HBM are as follows:
Perceived Threat:
Consists of two parts: perceived susceptibility and perceived severity of a
health condition.
Perceived
Susceptibility: One's subjective perception of the risk of contracting a health
condition, People will not change their health behaviors unless they believe
that they are at risk.
Those who do not think that they are at risk of acquiring HIV from unprotected
intercourse are unlikely to use a condom.
Perceived Severity:
Feelings concerning the seriousness of contracting an illness or of leaving it
untreated (including evaluations of both medical and clinical consequences and
possible social consequences). The probability that a person will change
his/her health behaviors to avoid a consequence depends on how serious he or
she considers the consequence to be.
If you are young and in love, you are unlikely to avoid kissing your sweetheart
on the mouth just because he has the sniffles, and you might get his cold. On
the other hand, you probably would stop kissing if it might give you IV
Perceived Benefits: The
believed effectiveness of strategies designed to reduce the threat of illness.
It's difficult to convince people to change a behavior if there isn't something
in it for them. An addict probably won't stop smoking if he doesn't think that
doing so will improve his life in some way.
Perceived Barriers: The
potential negative consequences that may result from taking particular health
actions, including physical, psychological, and financial demands. One of the
major reasons people don't change their health behaviors is that they think
that doing so is going to be hard. Sometimes it's not just a matter of physical
difficulty, but social difficulty as well. Changing your health behaviors can
cost effort, money, and time.
If everyone from your office goes out drinking on Fridays, it may be very
difficult to cut down on your alcohol intake.
Cues to Action: Events,
either bodily (e.g., physical symptoms of a health condition) or environmental
(e.g., media publicity) that motivate people to take action, they are external
events that prompt a desire to make a health change. They can be anything from
a blood pressure van being present at a health fair, to seeing a condom poster
on a train, to having a relative die of cancer. A cue to action is something
that helps move someone from wanting to make a health change to actually making
the change. Cues to actions is an aspect of the HBM that has not been
systematically studied.
Other Variables:
Diverse demographic, socio-psychological, and structural variables that affect
an individual's perceptions and thus indirectly influence health-related
behavior.
Self-Efficacy:
The belief in being able to successfully execute the behavior required to
produce the desired outcomes. Self
efficacy
looks at a
person's belief in his/her ability to make a health related change. It may seem
trivial, but faith in your ability to do something has an enormous impact on
your actual ability to do it. Thinking that you will fail will almost make
certain that you do. In fact, in recent years, self efficacy has been found to
be one of the most important factors in an individual's ability to successfully
negotiate
condom use.
DEVELOPMENT MEDIA
THEORY
Development media
theory advocates media support for an existing political regime and its efforts
to bring about national economic development. It argues that until a nation is
well established and its economic development well underway, media must be
supportive rather than critical of government. Journalists must not pick apart
government efforts to promote development but, rather, assist government in
implementing such policies.
The underlying fact behind the genesis of this theory was
that there can be no development without communication. Under the four
classical theories, capitalism was legitimized, but under the Development
media` theory, or Development Support Communication as it is otherwise called,
the media undertook the role of carrying out positive developmental programmes,
accepting restrictions and instructions from the State. The
media subordinated themselves to political, economic, social and cultural
needs. Hence the stress on "development communication" and
"development journalism". There
was tacit support from the UNESCO for this theory. The
weakness of this theory is that "development" is often equated with
government propaganda.
The tenets of this theory are:
1. Media
must accept and carry out positive development tasks in line with nationally
established policy.
2. Freedom
of the media should be open to economic priorities and development needs of the
society
3. Media
should give priority in their content to the national culture and language(s)
priority of coverage to other development countries.
4. Media
should give priority in news and information to links with other developing
countries that are close geographically, culturally or politically.
5. Journalists
and other media workers have responsibilities as well as freedoms in their
information gathering and dissemination tasks.
6.
In the interest of development ends the
state has a right to intervene in, or restrict, media operation; and devices of
censorship, subsidy and direct control can be justified.
HIV/AIDS
Human
Immunodeficiency Virus is an infectious agent that causes
acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a disease that leaves a person
vulnerable to life-threatening infections. Scientists have identified two types
of this virus. HIV-1 is the primary cause of AIDS worldwide. HIV-2 is found
mostly in West Africa. It is passed from one person to another primarily during
sexual contact
Acquired
Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a human viral disease
that ravages the immune system, undermining the body’s ability to defend itself
from infection and disease. Caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)
The issue of HIV/AIDS campaigns in Nigeria as one beyond the point of
telling people what HIV/AIDS means, most Nigerians' can be said to at least
have a general idea on what HIV/AIDS Is. In recent times however, due to this
assumption that the average Nigerians knows what HIV/AIDS is there
seems to be a decline in the rate at which HIV/AIDS campaigns
are publicized in times past,, there were adverts such as the old circle condom
advert, drama series like “wetin dey” but most of those sort of education
programs have given way to newer emerging issues like cancer. This however does
not mean that we are well knowledgeable in this area because new information
arises everyday and we have stopped updating our knowledge and so it is
possible to say that there is declining knowledge about HIV/AIDS In Nigeria.
