NCJ Number
117477
Date Published
1989
Length
57 pages
Annotation
This chapter summarizes some of the major findings of research on how to facilitate human behavioral changes to prevent disease and promote health, focusing on altering behaviors associated with the transmission of HIV infection.
Abstract
Providing accurate, appropriate, and effective information is the starting point for any health program. Education has an important role in facilitating behavioral change, allaying unnecessary fears, and reducing discrimination. Information alone, however, is generally insufficient to alter behavior. The chapter thus provides an analysis of the strategies needed to motivate persons to change unhealthy behaviors and sustain healthy ones. Because the behaviors of interest are enacted in social situations, the chapter discusses the social support needed to facilitate healthy behavior and the existing social impediments that hinder change in individual behavior and the implementation of HIV prevention programs. The chapter recommends that community-level interventions to prevent the spread of HIV infection address simultaneously information, motivational factors, skills, prevailing norms, and methods for diffusing innovation. 140-item bibliography.