Purpose: Failure to wear seat belts is a major contributor to injury and death in the United States. One such method to increase compliance rates is health communication. While health promotion efforts have been used to promote seat belt use, little research has been done in terms of evaluating the most effective health communication efforts to increase seat belt use. The primary purpose of the study was to determine if a specific message frame (fear based message vs. health promotion message) was most effective in influencing behavioral intention to use a seat belt. Secondly, the study provided an opportunity to test the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and its ability to predict intention to use a seat belt. Methods: A total of 273 university students participated in a pre and post-test survey. The survey measured specific constructs of TPB including, attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and behavioral intention to use a seat belt. Between pre and post-test each student was exposed to one of four message frames related to seat belt use (a negative framed message, a positive or health promotion message frame, a neutral message frame, and a control message frame). A one-way ANOVA was used to compare the amount of group variance for message frame conditions. Multiple regression was used to determine which TPB construct served as the most powerful predictor of intention to wear a seat belt. Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used to determine if attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control were independently correlated with intention. Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients for the survey subscales ranged from a low of .55 for the perceived behavioral subscale, .88 for attitude, .86 for subjective norm, and .87 for behavioral intention. Results: The study found that all three constructs of the TPB to be positively correlated with seat belt use intention with attitude being the “best” predictor of behavioral intention to wear a seat belt. This result is consistent with past research. All constructs of TPB were significantly related to intention to use a seat belt for the present study. It was hypothesized that a positive message frame would most effective for a health promotion behavior such as seat belt use; this was not the case for the present study. In fact, no differences were found between behavioral intention and message frame type. Possible explanations for study results and implications for future health communications research will be discussed.