ABSTRACT
This chapter examines uncertainty management theory, which explains how people make sense of health uncertainty and how they manage it through information seeking or avoiding behaviors. It discusses the extended parallel process model (EPPM), which explains how perceived threats to people's health combine with their sense of efficacy to predict whether they accept or reject persuasive messages about health. The chapter turns attention to a third theory that has been applied to health communication, the theory of planned behavior. It explores the theory of planned behavior, which combines beliefs, attitudes, intentions, and feelings of control to predict behavior. The chapter reviews a theory that helps understand how researchers and healthcare professionals can use fear constructively to motivate changes in health behavior. It also explores few theories that help understand how communication enables people to make sense of health and illness, to design persuasive messages for healthcare campaigns and interventions, and to understand how attitudes, beliefs, and intentions predict people's behaviors.
