ABSTRACT

Public health officials have increasingly come to recognize that many of the leading causes of death in the United States can be traced to the everyday behavioral choices that people make. In fact, an investigation published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2004 concluded that approximately half of the deaths in the U.S. can be attributed to a small number of preventable behaviors, such as smoking, inactivity, poor diet, and alcohol consumption (Mokdad, Marks, Stroup, & Gerberding, 2004). Consequently, public heath advocates have increasingly turned to the social and behavioral sciences for insights into behavior modification.