How the Public Reacts to Health Messages

Your intentions in developing a health message are no doubt good ones, but how the public reacts to your message may be a different matter. Focus groups and studies have concluded that the health messages may not be reaching the intended audiences because of the way the public reacts to the messages. When designing your health message, keep these factors in mind:
  • "Health Risk" is an intangible concept
    Many people do not understand the concept of relative risk, so personal decisions may be based on faulty reasoning. For example, the public tends to overestimate the risk of car and airplane accidents, homicides, and other events that most frequently make the news and underestimate their risks of less newsworthy, but more common, health problems, such as strokes and diabetes.

  • The public responds to easy solutions
    The public is more likely to respond to a call for action if the action is relatively simple, and less likely to act if the "price" of that action is higher, or the action is complicated. Therefore, when addressing a complex issue, there may be an intermediate action to recommend.

  • People want absolute answers
    In the absence of firm answers from a scientist, the media will sometimes draw an inappropriate conclusion, providing the public with faulty information that the public finds easier to accept. Therefore, you must carefully and clearly present your information to both the public and the media.

  • The public may react unfavorably to fear
    Frightening information, which sometimes cannot be avoided, may result in personal denial, disproportionate levels of hysteria, anxiety and feelings of helplessness.

  • The public doubts the accuracy of science
    The public knows that scientists can be wrong and recalls incidents such as the predicted swine flu epidemic. They may hesitate to believe a scientist's prediction.

  • The public has other priorities
    Let's face it, not everyone sees your health information as a priority over their daily problems. For example, healthy teenagers may find it inconceivable that their cigarette smoking may make them susceptible to future illness. Such intangible health information cannot compete with more tangible daily problems.

  • Individuals do not feel at risk
    The majority of the public feels that a serious illness "couldn't happen to them" and consider their risk as less than that of the general public, regardless of their actual risk.

  • The public holds contradictory beliefs
    Even though an individual may believe that "it can't happen to me", he or she can still believe that "everything causes cancer," and therefore, there is no way to avoid cancer "when your time comes", and no need to change personal behavior.

  • The public isn't thinking about tomorrow
    The majority of Americans say that it is better to live for the present that to worry about tomorrow. Many people, especially lower socioeconomic status groups, will have trouble relating to a message that talks about health problems in the future. It may take an actual health scare, or seeing a health problem in a friend or loved one, to make them alter their own behavior.

  • The public personalizes new information
    New health risk information is frequently described in terms of its effect on society, and, to understand it, the individual will try to apply that information to his or her own personal risk. This can leave room for misinterpretation and misjudgment, especially because technical analyses may be incomprehensible.

  • The public does not understand science
    Technical and medical terminology are poorly understood by the public. Therefore, individuals lack the basic tools required to understand and interpret some health information.

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See also > Center for Health Promotion > Health Promotion and Chronic Disease