A Health Educator's Guide to Theories of Health Behavior

Numerous health behavior theories (HBTs), each which attempt to explain why individuals engage in (or fail to engage in) health-related behaviors, exist in the literature. While much attention has been devoted to testing individual theories, little attention has been paid to issues that arise in the selection of theories. The current article has three goals. First, to describe some of the most widely used individual-level HBTs. Second, to discuss the application of these theories to successful health promotion efforts. And finally, to compare and contrast numerous HBTs and provide an example for how a selected theory might be applied to a health education program. The overriding goal is to provide guidance to researchers, health educators and other interventionists with regard to the important decision of which theory to use as a basis for one's health promotion efforts.