Abstract

Objectives: This paper aims to explain principles of gist-based health message design and discuss their implications for health promotion and public health education. Methods: After reviewing Reyna and Brainerd's Fuzzy Trace Theory(FTT), the authors explicate how to transform FTT into a practical guidance of health message design. Our explication is based upon FTT's reasoning that human intuition, rather than analysis, takes a primary role in message recall and comprehension, followed by judgment and decision making. We expect gist-based message design to be appropriate to serve such intuition. Results: Four principles of gist-based message design are offered: (1) provision of qualitative, as well as quantitative, information of gist, (2) inclusion of visual images corresponding to gist, (3) use of effective message formats to emphasize the gist (4) inclusion of relevant reasons and contextutal information. Conclusions: Gist-based message design has theoretical and practical implications for health promotion, specifically in the field of public health education, the press and governmental communication toward the public, and provider-patient communication in medical settings.

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