AbstractThis paper describes an empirically based method for defining the role of attitudes in health education planning. An explicit assumption underlying this method is that the professional health educator is an agent for behavior change who works, primarily via other health professionals, to enhance the health of the target population.To effect change, the health educator must be skilled in (a) problem definition, (b) program development or the treatment of the problem, (c) program implementation and (d) program evaluation. To illustrate this approach we present a model for measuring attitudes and social normative factors which seems useful in defining education need, illustrate its use in a cross‐culture comparison of a sample of adolescent cigarette smokers in Australia and United States of America and suggest some further steps to aid in planning and evaluating health education activities.While this paper emphasizes the role of attitude, attitudes are but one of a number of factors to be considered in health education program development. Anderson1and Green2suggest that attitudes and knowledge contribute to a predisposition to a particular behavior but that the ultimate behavior is also influenced by a set of factors best described as enabling the behavior and a set of factors which reinforce the behavio