Pills, Rebel Yells, and Red Dye Spills: Preventing the Misuse of Antibiotics via Language and Color Cues

Antibiotic resistance is an urgent global health crisis that requires effective communication strategies to encourage public engagement in preventive behaviors. The current study explores the impact of multimodal design features, including threat agency (human vs. bacteria), nominalized forms (antibiotic misuse vs. antibiotic misuser), and color cues (blue vs. red) in health communication messages about antibiotic resistance. A 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects experimental design was employed with a sample of 386 participants randomly assigned to one of eight conditions. Results indicated that messages assigning agency to humans led to greater perceived freedom threat compared to assigning bacteria as the agent. The interaction effects between threat agency and nominalized forms predicted perceived response efficacy and self-efficacy. The interaction between threat agency and color cues predicted intention to engage in antibiotic misuse. Additionally, the combination of nominalized forms and color cues predicted negative emotional reactions toward the fact sheet. The key takeaways from the study are that linguistic and sensory features often interact with each other to shape people’s health beliefs, and it is important to understand how to strategically present (or mask) human involvement when humans are a primary cause of the health threat. The study’s implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed. © 2026 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.