Public Health Resource: Applying Communication Theories & Models

This report discusses public health resources, focusing on the Protection Motivation Theory and its role in addressing fear-related health issues. It explores various behavioral options to mitigate threats and emphasizes the importance of health threat appraisals and coping responses for community well-being. The report delves into theoretical models like the Health Belief Model and the Transactional Model of Stress and Coping, explaining their application in understanding and predicting health behaviors. It also outlines the components of the health communication process, including reaching the audience, attracting attention, understanding the message, accepting change, producing behavior change, and ultimately, improving health. The report concludes by stressing the significance of prioritizing public health to enhance productivity and efficiency, highlighting the role of theoretical frameworks and practical strategies in achieving healthcare improvements within society.

Public Health Resource
Improving and protecting the health and
wellbeing of community is the main aim of public
health. A public health resource consists of various
processes, models and theories of communication in
relation with public health practice. This report will
discuss about components of communication process,
knowledge of communication theory, theoretical models
of health communication to the public health settings and
it will all help in developing a public health resource.
The various theoretical models of health communication
that can be successfully applied in public health settings
are as follows:
 HEALTH BELIEF MODEL – It is a
psychological model that tries to explain and
predict the health behaviour of individuals. Here,
they try to focus on the attitude and behaviours of
people so as to understand them properly. This
model is basically studied in four parts namely;
perceived severity, perceived benefits, perceived
susceptibility, perceived barriers. All these
concepts are used for reading behaviour of
people.
 PROTECTION MOTIVATION THEORY –
This theory was developed in 1975 and tries to
solve the problems of fear cause to people. It is
a process that brings in various behavioural
options so as to remove the threat. The
appraisals related to health threat and the
appraisal of coping responses can result in
protection and motivation otherwise it may lead
to maladaptive responses. These are the kind of
responses that has the possibility to place an
individual at health risk. The kind of behaviour
that is included in this are smoking, drinking
etc.
 TRANSACTIONAL MODEL OF STRESS
AND COPING – This theory was developed
for evaluating the process of coping with
stressful events. The stressful experiences that
are faced by a person is framed as person-
environment transactions. Whenever a person
faces a stress, they can immediately evaluate a
potential threat which is also called as Primary
appraisal. In this, the person judges the
importance of events in terms of stressful,
positive, controllable etc. In the Second
Appraisal, what resources will be used by
person for coping up with the stress will be

The process of health communication is a
complicated process which is divided into discrete steps.
This process is used for spreading awareness of health
risk and solutions and also tries to provide motivation
and skills that is required to reduce those risks. It is also
used to promote improvement or change in health related
factors. The components included in health
communication process for promoting mental health are:
STEP 1 – Reaching the Audience
Communication is considered effective only
when it is heard by the people. So, if government wants
to communicate something about the health care issues
then they have to use effective places or programmes so
that it gets noticed by people. So, in case of promoting
mental health, the government will organise various
programmes so that students can be made aware of this.
STEP 2 – Attracting the audience’s attention
If there is any kind of communication being
done, then it is very important that it has attention of
both the parties. If people will not pay attention, then
correct message will not be delivered. While conducting
programmes, the organisation should to gather the
attention of students so that they understand about the
issues
STEP 3 – Understanding the message
Once attention is paid then the concerned person
will try to understand it. So, the main task is that the
person should correctly interpret the meaning associated
with the message otherwise wrong interpretation may
create problems. So, for promoting mental health in
university it is very important that the students
understand the message.
STEP 4 – Accepting the change
Receiving the message is important but even
more important is to believe and accept it. So, the
sender should try that the receiver should believe the
message that has been sent to him.
STEP 5 – Producing behaviour change
A communication may result in a change in
beliefs and attitudes, but still not influence behavior or
action. This can happen when the communication has
not been aimed at the factor that has most influence on
the person’s behavior
STEP 6 – Improvement in Health
The improvement in health will be seen only
when the changed behaviour is seen in a positive
manner. In case of spreading awareness about mental
health, correct advices should only be given because if
wrong advices are chosen by students then they may
have to face many discrepancies in future.
From the above report, it can be concluded that
it is very important to take care of health of people
because it affects their productivity and efficiency. So,
in this report several theories and practices of
healthcare system is studied so as to bring
improvements in society related to health of
individuals.