This article presents an introduction to the Health Belief Model (HBM). The HBM states that the perception of a personal health behavior threat is influenced by at least three factors: general health values, interest and concern about health; specific beliefs about vulnerability to a particular health threat; and beliefs about the consequences of the health problem. Once an individual perceives a threat to his health and is simultaneously cued to action, if his perceived benefits outweighs his perceived costs, then the individual is most likely to undertake the recommended preventive health action. Key words: health promotion, health belief model, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, cues to action, self-efficacy. Content available only in Romanian.

Health Belief Model

The present short communication paper describes the methodological approach of applying the Health Belief Model to the use COVID-19 immunity certificates in the UK. We designed an online survey including an adaptation of the following Health Belief Model constructs: perceived COVID-19 susceptibility, perceived COVID-19 severity, perceived benefits of using immunity certificates, perceived barriers from using immunity certificates, perceived severity of not using immunity certificates, and perceived vaccination views. The online cross-sectional survey conducted on the 3rd of August 2021 gathered responses from 534 participants aged 18 and older, representative of the UK population in terms of gender, age, and ethnicity.

Using the Health Belief Model to design a questionnaire aimed at measuring people's perceptions regarding COVID-19 immunity certificates

Objectives: To assess what were the main individual factors influencing people9s perception of the importance of using COVID-19 immunity certificates. 

Design: Cross-sectional online survey.
Setting: Nationally representative survey in the UK, conducted on the 3rd of August 2021.

Participants: Responses from 534 participants, aged 18 and older, residents of the UK.

Interventions: This was a cross-sectional survey and each participant replied to the same set of questions.

Primary outcome measure and independent variables: The primary outcome measure (dependent variable) was the participants9 perceived importance of using immunity certificates, computed as an index of six items. The following individual drivers were used as the independent variables: a) personal beliefs about COVID-19 (using constructs adapted from the Health Belief Model), b) personal views on vaccination, c) willingness to share immunity status with service providers, and d) variables related to respondents9 lifestyle and socio-demographic characteristics.

Results: Perceived importance of immunity certificates was higher among respondents who felt that contracting COVID-19 would have a severe negative impact on their health (β=0.2564, p=0.0000) and felt safer if vaccinated (β=0.1552, p=0.0000). The prospect of future economic recovery positively influenced perceived importance of immunity certificates. Respondents who were employed or self-employed (β=-0.2412, p=0.0010), or experienced an increase in income after the COVID-19 pandemic (β=-0.1287, p=0.0020) perceived less important the use of immunity certificates compared to those who were unemployed or had retired or those who had experienced reduction in their income during the pandemic. 

Conclusions: The findings of our survey suggest that more vulnerable members in our society (unemployed or retired and those believing that COVID-19 would have a severe impact on their health) and people who experienced a reduction in income during the pandemic perceived the severity of not using immunity certificates in their daily life as higher.

https://medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.11.12.21266256v1.full.pdf

Individual factors influencing public’s perceptions about the importance of COVID-19 immunity certificates: a cross-sectional online questionnaire survey in the UK

Preprints are preliminary reports of work that have not been certified by peer review. They should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.

/pdf/why-one-size-fits-all-is-not-enough-when-designing-immunity-14uvmw1ghd.pdf

C-E Niculaescu

Papers

Why “one size fits all” is not enough when designing immunity certificates for domestic use: a UK wide cross-sectional online survey