The health belief model (HBM) was developed by Irwin Rosenstock and colleagues in the 1950s to explain why people were not using a free tuberculosis (TB) screening program. The original HBM consisted of four primary components: perceived threat (i.e., perceived severity and perceived susceptibility), perceived benefits, and perceived barriers. In 1988, self-efficacy was added to the HBM as another moderating factor to help explain why individuals were generally unsuccessful in changing their chronic unhealthy behaviors such as smoking or overeating. As more health interventions were designed using the HBM as a framework, the concept of cues to action was added to the model.

Cues to action are stimuli that encourage an individual to take a preventive action or adopt a recommended health behavior. Cues to action ...