Cues to Action: Using the Health Belief Model to Guide Occupational Safety and Health Communications

The Health Belief Model has been used to guide education and information efforts in many public health arenas. Usually researchers and practitioners focus on targets' perceptions of a) the health or injury threat, b) the recommended prevention action, and c) her or his ability to perform the action. However, for occupational safety and health communications, the cues to action construct from the HBM becomes central to understanding and predicting behavior. The labor contract between an employee and employer influences workplace behavior. Employees agree to behave in certain ways (performing work) in exchange for wages. Perceptions about the employer's support for occupational safety and health have an important influence on whether or not they perform protection behaviors. Occupational safety and health problems also require the use of a two-tiered HBM a second tier for simultaneously understanding the behavior of managers who have their own cues to action. We will contrast the relative influence of the cues to action construct in non-occupational and occupational situations. We will use data from a study of a sharps injury prevention campaign among health care workers in Columbia, South Carolina. Recommendations for further research will be included.