Question

- Identify and describe the key concepts which comprise the Diffusion of Innovations. Also, contemplate three of your health behaviors (physical activity, diet, sleeping habits, safety belt use, etc.) and identify which innovation characteristic persuaded you the most to adopt the health behavior

Answer 1

Diffusion examines how ideas are spread among groups of people, it goes beyond the two-step flow theory, which centers on the conditions that increase or decrease the likelihood that an innovation, a new idea, product or practice like type of physical activity to be performed, which type of diet to be included based on morbidity status of an individual which can be adopted by members of a given culture. During multi-step diffusion, the opinion leader still exerts a large influence on the behavior of individuals, called adopters i.e people accepts it , but there are also other intermediaries between the media and the audience's decision-making process which may affect the health behaviour

Innovations are not adopted by all individuals in a social system at the same time. Instead, they tend to adopt in a time sequence, and can be classified into adopter categories based upon how long it takes for people to begin using the new idea. It is very useful for a change agent to be able to identify which category certain individuals belong to in a continum of health, since the short-term goal of most change agents is to facilitate the adoption of an innovation. Adoption of a new idea is caused by human interaction through interpersonal networks.