Building theoretically grounded community-based translational research

Community-based interventions built on strong theoretical framework are relatively rare in oral health disparity research. A major strength of the research conducted through the NIDCR-funded health disparity center is the inclusion of an evidence base to support our research methodology, the Elaboration Likelihood Model. The Elaboration Likelihood Model is a theory of attitude/behavior change that has received strong empirical support and is based on the idea that attitudes are important because attitudes guide decisions and behaviors. While attitudes can result from a number of factors, persuasion is a primary source. ELM is familiar to most health communicators for its assertion that audience members for whom a message is personally relevant are likely to attend relatively closely to its central arguments. If those central arguments are strong as judged by the community long lasting attitude shifts occur. If not, the audience may be negatively persuaded. Moreover, among audience members for whom the message is less relevant, fewer cognitive resources will be engaged in processing the message, and any persuasive effects are likely to be transient and the result of peripheral cues such as source credibility, attractiveness and number of arguments provided. We argue that the more that is known about the audience including what constitutes a strong argument, the more effective the communication will be, making it ideal for use in a community-based research settings. In this presentation, current work and strategies for engaging the minority rural community in developing tailored health interventions rooted in the ELM will be discussed.