Improving health and wellbeing: A guide to using behavioural science in policy and practice

Public Health Wales in partnership with University College London’s Centre for Behaviour Change have published a new guide for policy makers and practitioners in government and public health that details how actively using behavioural science to better understand human behaviour can lead to more effective policies, services and communications.

The guide focuses on behaviours in a range of policy areas, that directly or indirectly influence human health and wellbeing, including;

• substance use,
• diet,
• physical exercise,
• injury prevention,
• behaviours that affect environmental sustainability,
• antisocial behaviours and pro-social behaviours.

The guide details that while behavioural science teams are increasingly being set up in organisations, most decisions are still made using ‘common sense’ assumptions and this can often lead to activities with limited effectiveness. Spending the time up front in the planning process asking who the audience is precisely, what ‘observable action’ you’d like them to do, with a clear rationale, and then understanding what would best enable that, can help tailor interventions that are the most likely to result in the target behaviour.

Find the full guide (in English) here.

Find further information here.