The expanded health belief model as a basis for enlightened preventive health care practice and research.

The health belief model has served as the primary theoretical vehicle for preventive health care research and practitioner guidelines for the past two decades. However, it has been criticized for its rational belief tenets. An expanded health belief model is proposed that explicitly incorporates a process orientation and adds several constructs with good potential to explain difficulties practitioners encounter in fostering realization of health risks and/or gaining long-term compliance with preventive health care recommendations. Illustrative practitioner implications are described and an agenda for research on the expanded model is outlined.