Summary
Every day, consumers make decisions that directly or indirectly affect their health. The COVID-19 pandemic and its long-term physical and mental health complications underscore the importance of a holistic understanding of the factors affecting consumer health and medical decision-making. Without such a holistic approach, medical recommendations and interventions are doomed to lack long-term positive outcomes. After the pandemic, advances in health care and biotechnology can have a greater impact on life if they play an important and complementary role in decision-making. The 5S framework will help future researchers to learn more from the 5S or from past research on health care and health-related decision-making.
Self-Drivers
Many “Self” variables influence health and health decisions. Consumers belong to different demographic groups and have different health goals, abilities, perceptions and beliefs. The motivating factor for consumer promotion is the self-efficacy of the message that the desired health state can be easily achieved (Huang & Lee, 2022). In contrast, for prevention-oriented consumers, the more motivating factor is the responsive messages that ensure the effective achievement of the desired health state.
Social Drivers
Consumers are social beings, and it is not surprising that consumers’ health decisions are greatly influenced by social factors named as social drivers. One particularly powerful way in which social factors influence health is through social comparison. Social networks and other networks are important guides, allowing consumers to learn about themselves by comparing their situation to that of others. An important aspect of health and medical decision-making is that the decision-making process often begins or precedes a concern/problem about health. Thus, it mostly has a direct impact on health.
Solution Drivers
Consumers seek solutions to their health problems with themselves and are influenced by social factors (Huang & Lee, 2022). If the solution includes (1) human providers such as physicians, (2) non-human providers accessible through new technologies such as AI medical assistants, and (3) product solutions such as treatment plans and medicines. In the case of human and non-human donors, there is interaction between donor and patient, and the relationship evolves over time.
Service-Provider Drivers
In medical marketing, which is a part of social-provider drivers, even well-intentioned product positioning can be counterproductive. The study found that positioning and promoting a product as a medicine or dietary supplement changes consumers’ perceptions of health risks and their ability to cope with these risks, and that consumer behaviour has become very different (Huang & Lee, 2022). Marketing a product as a medicine (rather than a supplement) makes consumers less likely to adhere to a healthy lifestyle.
Societal and Situational Drivers
The researchers believe there are two reasons for this boomerang effect. First, drugs may reduce a user’s perception of risk, thereby reducing the importance and motivation for additional health-seeking behaviours, such as eating foods low in cholesterol. Second, drugs may be associated with poorer health outcomes, reducing self-efficacy to engage in healthy behaviours. Marketers and policymakers use different messages and communication strategies to promote health products, services and practices (Huang & Lee, 2022). Previous research has shown that how health messages are communicated affects how they are constructed, how they are presented and how they interact with consumer preferences and context. In addition to internal factors affecting the consumer and external influences from social factors, decision-making and service providers, the broader social and situational environment of the consumer also influences health and health decision-making (Huang & Lee, 2022). The context in which consumers find themselves often interacts with their characters and influences the way they think and behave. Here we look at the work on this driver, including the background article.
Thus, the researchers have built on these articles to develop a new 5S (Self, Social, Decision, ServiceProvider, Social/Situational) framework that describes the holistic factors underlying health and medical decision-making by consumers. In addition, the 5S framework will help future researchers explore the value of conducting health research and medical decision-making by learning more about the 5S and moving beyond past research to a broader and more comprehensive scope.
Work Cited
Huang, S., & Lee, L. (2022). The 5S’s of Consumer Health: A Framework and Curation of JCR Articles on Health and Medical Decision-Making. Journal of Consumer Research. Web.