Table 2.

Predicted associations of risk conviction with different types of health behaviors, if risk conviction were measured as an alternative to perceived risk

Type of health behavior	Examples of behavior	Predictions for people with low risk conviction	Predictions for people with high risk conviction	Caveats
Screening to determine disease risk	Predictive genetic testing, cholesterol screening, blood pressure screening	Those with low risk conviction will be more likely to obtain screening so they can learn additional risk information because they are uncertain about their degree of risk	Those with high risk conviction will be less likely to obtain screening to learn additional risk information. If they are certain their risk is either high or low, then there is no need to obtain screening to learn whether risk is high or low.	This association may depend on the reason for low risk conviction. If people have low risk conviction because they don’t understand risk factors, they may not have the knowledge to understand what type of screening to seek.
Screening to determine presence or absence of disease	Mammography, colonoscopy, clinical or self-skin examination	Those with low risk conviction will be less likely to obtain screening, particularly if fearful of information that might be obtained.	Those with high risk conviction will be more likely to obtain screening. If they are certain their risk is low, then there is no need to be fearful of information that might be obtained. If they are certain their risk is high, then screening will be more likely to be useful.	This association may depend on the extent to which individuals express worry or fear about learning risk information, or they extent to which they typically avoid health information for these reasons.
Prevention	Sunscreen use, aspirin use, radon testing	Those with low risk conviction may be less likely to engage in prevention behaviors if the reason for the low risk conviction is lack of prior thought about the relevant disease.	People who are certain their risk is low may not engage in prevention behaviors if they think it is unnecessary, or they may be certain their risk is low precisely because they already engage in prevention behaviors. Conversely, people who are certain their risk is high may engage in more prevention behaviors because they think it is necessary, or they may be certain their risk is high precisely because they do not engage in prevention behaviors. As such, for prevention behaviors we do not think there would be a direct association between risk conviction and behavior, and risk perception itself would be more predictive.	The association of risk conviction with prevention behaviors may depend on whether the research conducted is cross-sectional (in which case risk perceptions may be a result of engagement in prevention behaviors) or prospective/longitudinal (in which risk conviction may predict behavior).