Write 8 pages with APA style on Applying Health Behavioural Theories to Influence Whether People Natural Disasters. Health behavior is defined as the activity of a person to be healthy in order to prevent diseases. There are a number of factors that control the individual differences in the tendency to commence health behaviors, including demographic factors, social factors, emotional factors, factors relating to medical care, personality factor (DiClemente, Salazar, & Crosby, 2011). A comprehensive understanding of health behavior theories can facilitate to deal with uncalled for emergency situations caused by natural disasters such as Hurricane Sandy. Hurricane Sandy can bring about the threat of severe diseases which can be considered as a major threat for people residing in the affected areas. Therefore, assessment of severity and determining appropriate measures to deal with the detrimental effects can enable people to retain good health and protect against illness. .
Health Belief Model (HBM) is one of the integral parts of the practice regarding public health. This model is mainly based on logic. There are two factors that have significant impacts on health behavior. The first factor is perceived threat and the second one is expected net gain derived from the health-protecting behavior. Providing the specific types of knowledge which can protect from disease and can change the behavior of human beings for health-enhancing purpose are the main ideas of this model. This model is part of the cognitive perspective towards health behavior, whose key idea is that people are observed to be motivated by a particular type of knowledge to alter their behaviors. Therefore, it can be said that in the case of natural disasters such as Hurricane Sandy people need to be motivated based on the key dimensions of HBM to alter their behaviors. It can enable to protect against prevailing diseases that might occur after the devastations caused by Hurricane Sandy (DiClemente, Salazar, & Crosby, 2011).
The perceived threat is referred to as the most important inspiration for the decision to adopt protective behavior. .Perceived threat mainly comprises two conditions that are perceived as scary stimulus and perceived vulnerability. In relation to Hurricane Sandy, the perceived scary stimulus can be the massive amount of damages that can be caused in the areas that would face the brunt of the hurricane. .
