The HBM can be an effective framework to use when developing health education strategies. These strategies can be applied in almost every aspect of a person’s life, whether its preventing the spread of STDs/STIs by promoting safe sex, motor vehicle accidents related to DWIs/DUIs, avoiding obesity, cardiovascular disease, hypertension or diabetes.

However, there are both pros and cons to the HBM, the pros can be delegated by the perceived benefits of taking action and the cons are based on the perceived barriers. An example of the pros and cons of the HBM is getting tested regularly for STDs/STIs. The pro is knowing whether or not if you have a disease or infection and the con can be the cost of getting tested (especially if a person is uninsured) and taking the time to get tested. More cons associated with the HBM are:

• It doesn’t take into account behaviors that are performed for non-health related reasons, like social acceptability
• It does not take into account environmental factors that can promote or inhibit a recommended health change behavior
• It assumes everyone has access to equal amounts of information on the illness or health condition
• Socioeconomic status
• Education
• It does not tell individuals how to make a behavior change

The Health Belief Model should be incorporated with other models (i.e. Socio-Ecological Model) in order to account for the areas of weakness of the HBM and suggest more strategies for change.