Discuss the effectiveness of one health promotion strategy - fear appeals.

Fear appeals may be used to promote many different health campaigns to promote a healthier lifestyle, some examples include stop smoking campaigns, healthy eating campaigns and AIDS prevention. These campaigns can be presented in many different ways usually through the media. Huhmann and Brotherton (1997) conducted a study on advertising campaigns in magazines; they found that 4.8% of the 2769 advertisements studied contained fear appeals. This is less than other appeals such as humour and comparisons which accounted for 10.8% and 10% of the advertisements. Fear appeals were used more often than aesthetic appeals which accounted for 4.1% of the advertisements. This suggests that fear appeals are not the most effective way of promoting a health change in individuals; if this was the case it is likely that they would be used more often. The study however was only conducted in one country this suggests that the findings may only be relevant to the country it was conducted in and cannot give a general view on the use of fear appeals.

Witte and Allen (2000) suggest that strong fear appeals produce high levels of perceived severity and susceptibility, and are more persuasive than low or weak fear appeals. They also found that strong fear appeals and high-efficacy messages produce the greatest levels of defensive responses.

A study by Keller (1996) looks into anti-smoking campaigns and the level of fear necessary for fear appeals to be effective, findings suggested that the effectiveness of fear appeals is not only related to the level of fear but also how well the problem, in the case of smoking lung cancer, and the solution are emphasised. An example of a study conducted using fear appeals outside of the media was conducted by Eshrati et al in 2008. The aim of the study was to determine the association between the beliefs of a group of adult, male prisoners in Iran about the transmission of HIV and high-risk practices while in prison. A cross-sectional study was conducted. The study population was a random selection of 100 men serving time at Rajaei-Shahr prison. The data was collected through a self-administered questionnaire. Focus group discussions were held at the prison to guide the design of the questionnaire. The use of fear appeals and education resulted in prisoners not engaging in HIV high-risk behaviours. It was found that increased education to make prisoners aware of the risks would be beneficial.

Fear appeals can be considered unethical as many campaigns can be disturbing especially to young people. An example of this can be seen in many stop-smoking campaigns where the images are often graphic in order to induce sufficient fear in the individual; this may also cause distress to young children. For this reason fear appeals can be considered ineffective as it may not always be possible for a campaign to evoke enough fear as there is a risk of harm to children.

In conclusion the effectiveness of fear appeals can largely rely on the individual. One campaign may have the correct emphasis on fear and possible solutions to alter the individual’s behaviour in order to avoid the threat of poor health. However these rely on the behaviour of the individual as one person who may consider a specific change in behaviour to be realistic another may not. This suggests that despite the fear appeal the individual will still assess the perceived severity and cost to them to perform the change in behaviour and that fear appeals may work for different types of individuals.