title: Health communication and professional preparation: health educator credibility, message learning, and behavior change.
abstract: Health education graduate students were surveyed to assess perceptions of their professional responsibility to be role models of healthy behaviors, characteristics of a professional role model, and related socializing experiences during professional preparation. A total of 233 randomly selected health education graduate students participated in this study nationwide. Significant inverse associations were found between students' year in graduate school and sense of excellence as a role model, graduate program satisfaction, and professional commitment (all ps < 0.05). Students' sense of professional marketability and competence to role model were statistically significant in predicting their perception that role modeling healthy behaviors is a professional responsibility, F(2, 215) = 110.25, p = 0.00001. Positive associations also were found between students' desire to improve fitness behavior, nutrition, and weight and/or body fat ratio with self-ratings as role models (all ps < 0.05). Implications for the profession and preparation are provided.
authors.affiliation: Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA. lscott@cfah.org
authors.forename: L A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Scott
authors.forename: D R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Black
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004517:Education, Professional; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D006266:Health Education; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D011582:Psychological Theory; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012380:Role; D012951:Socialization; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D014481:United States