Applying the health belief model to a target population

The construct list in the opening paragraph is not decoration — it is the menu the paper is graded against. Seven constructs are named: perceived benefits, perceived barriers, perceived seriousness, perceived susceptibility, cues to action, modifying variables and self-efficacy. Two of them are **mandatory** and named again in their own section — perceived benefits and perceived barriers — and then you *select two other constructs of your choice*. So the paper covers four constructs in total, not seven and not two, and the choice of the second pair is yours to defend. Deciding which two before you draft is worth doing, because the ones that produce the most specific writing are usually cues to action and self-efficacy rather than the two perception constructs that sound most similar to the mandatory pair. Choosing early also keeps the two optional sections from duplicating the mandatory pair, which is the usual result of deciding them while drafting.

Two variables in this assignment come from different places and students routinely conflate them. The **topic is assigned by your Instructor**; the **target population is selected by you**, and only from the list in the Target Population document. That means you cannot choose a population that happens to suit the topic you would have preferred, and you cannot substitute a population of your own. The instruction to *contact your Instructor if you have any questions* about the topic is there because an assumed topic invalidates everything downstream. Confirm both before you search, and state them explicitly in the opening paragraph so the marker can see immediately which pairing you are working with. Write both into the first paragraph as a single sentence naming the topic and the population, since every later claim is only assessable against that pairing.

*Be specific and provide examples* appears in both construct sections, and it is the phrase that separates the passing papers from the rest. A specific perceived barrier for a defined population is not “lack of time”; it is a barrier a member of that group would actually name — a co-payment against a weekly budget, a clinic open only during working hours, a screening that requires childcare, transport that takes two buses. The same discipline applies to benefits: not “improved health” but the outcome that population values, in their terms. Each construct section should end with at least one example concrete enough that it could not be transferred to a different target group without editing. Perceived benefits are the harder of the two to make specific, because the benefit a health service promotes is often not the one the population is actually weighing.

The evidence requirement is worded twice and is stricter than the usual APA line: *at least three peer-reviewed, scholarly articles related to your assigned topic **and** target population*, and a closing note asking for journal articles that *establish the evidence-based research for your responses*. Both clauses point the same way — the articles must be about your specific pairing, not about the Health Belief Model in general. Searching the model's name alone returns a large literature that will support a generic paper and none of your specific claims. Search the topic and the population together first, and bring the model in second. Three articles about your pairing are also easier to write from than thirty about the model, since each one gives you examples rather than definitions.

Finally, note the shape the brief prescribes: a title page, then four named sections, then references, in **3 to 4 pages** excluding title and references. The first section asks for the model *in your own words*, which is an explicit warning against a paraphrased textbook definition and should be kept short. The last, *Summary of HBM*, is not a conclusion about health behaviour generally — it summarises the model's application to your target and your assigned topic, which means it can only be written after the construct sections and should refer back to them rather than restating the model. A useful test for that section: if it could be read without the construct sections above it and still make sense, it is a conclusion about the model rather than a summary of your application.