ABSTRACT
O rganizations, small and large, public and private, continue to rely onhealth communication as a way to motivate and support healthfulbehaviors. Thus, the specification of evidence-based strategies that can guide the design and dissemination of health communication materials has the potential to greatly enhance their impact on behavior and, in turn, on health. One communication strategy that has received considerable attention from both basic and applied behavioral scientists is the relative effectiveness of messages that focus on the benefits of performing a healthful behavior (e.g., a pamphlet or video describing the benefits of having a mammogram – a gain-framed message) and messages that focus on the costs of not performing the behavior (e.g., a pamphlet or a video describing the costs of not having a mammogram – a lossframed message). Over the past 20 years, investigators have worked to specify the factors that regulate the impact of gain-and loss-framed health messages and to translate that evidence base into a set of guidelines that practitioners can use when designing health communication programs (Rothman, Bartels, Wlaschin, & Salovey, 2006; Rothman & Salovey, 1997; Rothman, Wlaschin, Bartels, Latimer, & Salovey, 2008).
