The Book of Behavior Change is an Open Access book that helps with the development of effective behavior change interventions as well as doing research into behavior change. Unlike for example Intervention Mapping, this book does not provide a complete protocol, instead focusing on identifying what to target, and how to target it, to maximize intervention effectiveness.

EMERGE (Evidence-based Measures of Empowerment for Research on Gender Equality) is a project focused on gender equality and empowerment measures to monitor and evaluate health programs and to track progress on UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5: To Achieve Gender Equality and Empower All Girls. As reported by UN Women (2018), only 2 of the 14 SDG 5 indicators have accepted methodologies for measurement and data widely available. Of the remaining 12, 9 are indicators for which data are collected and available in only a limited number of countries. This assessment suggests notable measurement gaps in the state of gender equality and empowerment worldwide. EMERGE aims to improve the science of gender equality and empowerment measurement by identifying these gaps through the compilation and psychometric evaluation of available measures and supporting scientifically rigorous measure development research in India.

Which theory of behavior change can help you plan a health communication intervention for a large audience? There is no single right answer, but some theories will fit your needs better than others. The purpose of this tool is to rank-order some commonly used theories by their degree of fit with your behavior change challenge.

So Limaye and Johns Hopkins have created a free two-hour course on the online platform Coursera that's open to anyone. It's called COVID Vaccine Ambassador Training: How to Talk to Parents. Their goal is to prepare everyone, from principals to PTA presidents, to counter misinformation with empathy and, ultimately, to move more people to seek out the lifesaving vaccine.

In 2010, Colombia's defense minister contacted an ad agency to create an idea to demobilize FARC members, the oldest guerrilla army in Latin America. The agency, after spending over a year talking to nearly 100 of its members, learned two main things (1). -First, guerrilla members are ordinary men and women and not only guerrillas, a fact which is often forgotten after 60 years at war. -Secondly, they are more likely to demobilize during Christmas as it is a sensitive and emotional period. Based on these insights, they had a clever idea to put a Christmas tree in strategic walking paths in the middle of the jungle that would light up when someone passed by with a message promoting demobilization. The results? Three hundred thirty-one people who demobilized named this idea as one of the reasons to do so. Over the years, several campaigns from the same agency were quite successful, and overall, they were named in over 800 demobilizations. Causality, of course, cannot be established. Nevertheless, any measurable, non-violent efforts like this one are praised. Next time you think you have a difficult-to-reach customer, maybe think again!

CUBES (to Change behavior, Understand Barriers, Enablers, and Stages of change) is a comprehensive framework for analyzing behavior developed by Surgo Ventures. As described in the video with Peter Smittenaar below, CUBES builds on evidence-based behavioral models that are widely used across sectors and includes drivers that show evidence of changing behavior. It illustrates how adopting a new behavior is a process of stages; at each stage, people are influenced by internal and environmental factors (see Figure 1). The CUBES framework articulates three critical components of behavior change: The path toward a target behavior comprises distinct stages of change, progressing from knowledge to intention, action, repetition, and finally, habit. Perceptual and contextual drivers can act as enablers or barriers that influence each individual, shaping their progression through each stage of change. Influencers in the form of family and friends, community, and society can affect these drivers, either directly or via media channels.

A pressing goal in global development and other sectors is often to understand what drives people’s behaviors, and how to influence them. Yet designing behavior change interventions is often an unsystematic process, hobbled by insufficient understanding of contextual and perceptual behavioral drivers and a narrow focus on limited research methods to assess them. We propose a toolkit (CUBES) of two solutions to help programs arrive at more effective interventions. First, we introduce a novel framework of behavior, which is a practical tool for programs to structure potential drivers and match corresponding interventions. This evidence-based framework was developed through extensive cross-sectoral literature research and refined through application in large-scale global development programs. Second, we propose a set of descriptive, experimental, and simulation approaches that can enhance and expand the methods commonly used in global development. Since not all methods are equally suited to capture the different types of drivers of behavior, we present a decision aid for method selection. We recommend that existing commonly used methods, such as observations and surveys, use CUBES as a scaffold and incorporate validated measures of specific types of drivers in order to comprehensively test all the potential components of a target behavior. We also recommend under-used methods from sectors such as market research, experimental psychology, and decision science, which programs can use to extend their toolkit and test the importance and impact of key enablers and barriers. The CUBES toolkit enables programs across sectors to streamline the process of conceptualizing, designing, and optimizing interventions, and ultimately to change behaviors and achieve targeted outcomes.

Tested is an award-winning comic book that features diverse characters affected by a broad range of health conditions and related social issues. With a touch of heart and humor, 'Tested' depicts a diverse cast of characters affected by stigma, HIV, STIs, substance use, LGBTQ+ issues, and much more.

People regularly ask me how to perform a systematic *web* search. Finally found some time to organize my ad hoc tips and relate these to steps in a systematic scholarly search. Despite the options, web search will remain less controlled and a fuzzy patchwork.

The issue is: We try to solve every single box in the problem tree. If people don’t know about something, then we solve it by raising awareness. If people don’t care about something, then we solve it by getting them to care more. If people are doing illegal behaviors because of a lack of enforcement, then we solve it by increasing enforcement. We go through the whole set of problem tree causes in this manner, writing objectives with a one-to-one match per problem. Not only does this result in a long list of objectives, which will quickly overwhelm us, it also traps us into solving behavioral problems using logic-based approaches.

Design for Understanding

It found exposure to the drama led to significant changes in most outcomes with 37% of those who watched at least one episode showing behavioural intent to act, rising to 78% of those who had watched at least seven episodes. The show reached 59.6 million unique viewers, confirming drama as an effective, low cost and scalable tool to engage people around faecal sludge management – a critical and hard to address issue.

Renowned wellness advocate Vishen Lakhiani of Mind Valley has identified 12 Areas Of Life Balance that cover those aspects of your life that most significantly influence your happiness and productivity. Take time to review each area, and give yourself a score out of 10 (1 being low and 10 being high). This isn't a test! You don't need to share these scores with anyone, but it's really good to be completely honest.

Want to build better habits? By answering these questions you will in less than 10 minutes have created your own personalized habit building plan backed by the best from behavioral science. The finished plan will be sent straight to your email.

1. Shadowing; 2. Seeing; 3. Studying the solution that already exists

The UK regulator the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has launched the country’s first official anti-fraud jingle. The aim; to protect consumers against loan fee fraud. Between November 2020 and January 2021, some one in 20 calls received by the FCA were reporting an instance of loan fee fraud. The FCA’s anti-fraud jingle is designed to be a light-hearted, engaging way to spread awareness of loan fee fraud advice to consumers over Christmas. Loan fee fraud is when consumers are asked to pay an upfront fee for a loan or credit that they then never receive. With behavioural scientists INFLUENCE AT WORK and music production company Soviet Science, the song has been produced make loan fee fraud guidance more memorable and more shareable.