ABSTRACT
If the aim of your health and safety communication is to influence and persuade the audience, then the ultimate goal is for the audience to change its behavior. This calls for a strategy-a plan of action-to create change. You will see, however, that actual behavior change is a complex process. So, maybe the more prudent strategy for change is to focus on more proximate results, which can be seen as connected together along the way toward behavioral change. Your strategy may thus emphasize raising awareness, increasing knowledge and urging the audience to examine its beliefs. Behavior change on any scale is best tackled through know-feel-do strategies (see Figure 4.1). Typically, no automatic, magic switch gets thrown so that the change in behavior occurs. Think about some behavior that you changed. For example, did you stop biting your nails? Did you start turning the light off when you left a room? Did you stop texting
while driving? Have you begun eating healthier? With each of these efforts, what did it take on your part? Was it as simple as having more knowledge and then, voilà, the behavior changed? Probably not. Was it having your attitude modified and then the behavior was automatically altered? Probably not. To make matters more complicated, some behaviors seem to be changed by one strategy, while other behaviors are affected through another strategy. For example: not biting your nails might require knowledge about germs, applying bitter-tasting nail polish and finally getting a manicure and not wanting to mess it up. Another example is stopping texting while driving. It could have been as simple as keeping your cell phone out of reach while you are driving. And, there are still other health or safety concerns for which your behavior has not yet changed. Eating healthily can be a lifelong challenge. This is the same with your efforts working with others-you know your ultimate goal is their behavior change, but your more immediate focus includes having them accomplish results in one or more of the areas along the way. With your work in health and safety communications, the mantra stressed throughout this guide is being clear with what you want your audience to know, feel or do. Specifically, you may want them to know some facts through a particular health and safety communications initiative. Or, you may want them to feel a particular way, or to have a different type of attitude about an issue. In the bigger picture, you want your target audience to do something different in order to engage in healthy and safe behavior.
