Prevention Plus Wellness (PPW) programs for youth, adults and parents, and even our media campaigns, are founded on the Behavior-Image Model (BIM).
BIM is a wellness-based theoretical roadmap for developing prevention programs that integrate substance use avoidance with healthy behavior promotion to cost-effectively address multiple health behavior risks within single interventions.
BIM allows prevention specialists to develop programs and campaigns that can increase the strength and breadth of prevention intervention outcomes and improve the mental and physical wellbeing, performance and happiness of youth and young adults.
A simplified version of the Behavior-Image Model includes the following sequential steps:
- Screening individuals for current healthy & substance use habits increases their behavioral awareness
- Communicating behavior-image messages integrating healthy habits & risk behaviors (i.e., substance use)
- This cues unconscious positive future & peer healthy behavior images
- Which increases awareness of healthy behavior images as values & substance use/misuse as undesirable
- And which also enhances motivation to set & monitor multiple health behavior goals
- Setting & monitoring goals initiates behavior change & leads to increased self-regulation skills & self-efficacy