Public Health Safety in Community Living Circles Based on a Behavioral Motivation Perspective: Theoretical Framework and Evaluation System

HIGHLIGHTS: A theoretical framework for the research of public health safety in community living circles is based on a behavioral motivation perspective. What are the main findings? Building a “geographical environment–life activity–public health” model for evaluating health behavior. Building a public health safety evaluation system for community living circles. What is the implication of the main finding? A new approach to the theory of “healthy communities” based on direct impact factors. The findings can be used in community living circles for “health checks”, and the planning of healthy and safe living circles. ABSTRACT: Public health problems, such as the spread of COVID-19 and chronic diseases, are mainly caused by the daily life activities of community residents. Therefore, there is a need to build a healthy and safe community living circle through the evaluation of health behaviors in daily life. This paper proposes a theoretical framework and evaluation system for public health safety in community living circles, from a behavioral motivation perspective. Firstly, based on the behavioral motivation theory, a theoretical framework for the study of public health safety in community living circles is constructed from the perspective of the “project–activity–health” coupling relationship network, regarding community residents’ daily life activities. Then, a public health safety evaluation system for community living circles is proposed based on this framework, which includes the following: (1) identifying the scope of community living circles based on Spatio-temporal Activities Analysis; (2) Based on the theory of protection motivation, a health behavior evaluation model based on the three elements of “spatial and temporal geographical environment–daily life activities–public health safety” is established; (3) Based on the hierarchy of public health problems, a public health safety evaluation model of the community living circle is established. The behavioral motivation-based evaluation system explores a new approach and research paradigm for community-scale public health safety theory; this will help to achieve the goal of “healthy communities” when further empirical evidence is available.