A recent meta-analysis looked like good news for the effectiveness of “nudge“ theory. Does a new set of rebuttal letters throw the whole idea into doubt?
A cognitive walkthrough is a technique used to evaluate the learnability of a system. Unlike user testing, it does not involve users (and, thus, it can be relatively cheap to implement). Like heuristic evaluations, expert reviews, and PURE evaluations, it relies on the expertise of a set of reviewers to assess the interface. Although cognitive walkthroughs can be conducted by an individual, they are designed to be done as part of a group in a workshop setting where evaluators walk through a task in a highly structured manner from a new user’s point of view.
Research consistently shows evidence-based social and behavior change (SBC) programs can increase knowledge, shift attitudes and norms and produce changes in a wide variety of behaviors. SBC has proven effective in several health areas, such as increasing the uptake of family planning methods, condom use for HIV prevention, and care-seeking for malaria. Between 2017 and 2019, a series of comprehensive literature reviews were conducted to consolidate evidence that shows the positive impact of SBC interventions on behavioral outcomes related to family planning, HIV, malaria, reproductive empowerment, and the reproductive health of urban youth in low- and middle-income countries. The result is five health area-specific databases that support evidence-based SBC. The databases are searchable by keyword, country, study design, intervention and behavior. The databases extract intervention details, research methodologies and results to facilitate searching. For each of the five health areas, a “Featured Evidence” section highlights a list of key articles demonstrating impact.
Broadly, these feedback surveys can be categorised into five groups: the pointless; the self-important; the immoral; the demanding; and the downright weird:
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.
The Meta-Analysis Learning Information Center (MALIC) believes in equitably providing cutting-edge and up-to-date techniques in meta-analysis to researchers in the social sciences, particularly those in education and STEM education.
Achieving sustained behavior change takes a long time. I mean, hell, we’re still running ads about buckling seat-belts and most states made it a law 35 years ago! Beyond achieving behavior change, seeing the positive impact of said change on species, habitats and ecosystems can take even longer. So how can we balance these longer term goals with the need to show more immediate outcomes?
Costing is the process of data collection and analysis for estimating the cost of a health intervention. High-quality cost data on SBC are critical not only for developing budgets, planning, and assessing program proposals, but can also feed into advocacy, program prioritization, and agenda setting. To better serve these data needs, these guidelines aim to increase the quantity and quality of SBC costing information. By encouraging cost analysts to use a standardized approach based on widely accepted methodological principles, we expect the SBC Costing Guidelines to result in well-designed studies that measure cost at the outset, to allow assessment of cost-effectiveness and benefit-cost ratios1 for SBC programming. Such analyses could also potentially help advocates for SBC to better make the case for greater investment in SBC programming.2 These guidelines lay out a consistent set of methodological principles that reflect best practice and that can underpin any SBC costing effort.
Before we dive in, here is a quick summary of the proposed taxonomy of behaviour change failures: No effect Backfiring Intervention is effective but it's offset by a negative side effect Intervention isn't effective but there's a positive side effect A proxy measure changes but not the ultimate target behaviour Successful treatment effect offset by later (bad) behaviour Environment doesn't support the desired behaviour change Intervention triggers counteracting forces
The behavioural change enterprise disproportionately focuses on promoting successes at the expense of examining the failures of behavioural change interventions. We review the literature across different fields through a causal explanatory approach to identify structural relations that impede (or promote) the success of interventions. Based on this analysis we present a taxonomy of failures of behavioural change that catalogues different types of failures and backfiring effects. Our analyses and classification offer guidance for practitioners and researchers alike, and provide critical insights for establishing a more robust foundation for evidence-based policy. Behavioural change techniques are currently used by many global organisations and public institutions. The amassing evidence base is used to answer practical and scientific questions regarding what cognitive, affective, and environment factors lead to successful behavioural change in the laboratory and in the field. In this piece we show that there is also value to examining interventions that inadvertently fail in achieving their desired behavioural change (e.g., backfiring effects). We identify the underlying causal pathways that characterise different types of failure, and show how a taxonomy of causal interactions that result in failure exposes new insights that can advance theory and practice.
We are a global collaboration aimed at improving evaluation practice and theory through co-creation, curation, and sharing information.
Currently Available Costing and Economic Evaluation Products The Business Case for Investing in Social and Behavior Change (report) new Guidelines for Costing Social and Behavior Change Interventions (report) new The Added Value of Costing Social and Behavior Change Interventions (brief) new Social and Behavior Change Business Case and Costing Webinar Generating Evidence to Inform Integrated Social and Behavior Change Programming in Nigeria Making the Business Case for Social and Behavior Change Programming (activity brief)
The Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT) is a systematic method to evaluate and compare the understandability and actionability of patient education materials. It is designed as a guide to help determine whether patients will be able to understand and act on information. Separate tools are available for use with print and audiovisual materials.
research on health comm messaging effects
The 2012 review found 6 studies (combined N = 23 048). In a meta-analysis, the pooled odds ratio for condom use was 2.01 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.42-2.84) for the most recent sexual encounter and 2.10 (95% CI: 1.51-2.91) for a composite of all condom use outcomes. Studies had significant methodological limitations. Of 518 possible new citations identified in the update, no new articles met our inclusion criteria.
When people make decisions with a pre-selected choice option – a ‘default’ – they are more likely to select that option. Because defaults are easy to implement, they constitute one of the most widely employed tools in the choice architecture toolbox. However, to decide when defaults should be used instead of other choice architecture tools, policy-makers must know how effective defaults are and when and why their effectiveness varies. To answer these questions, we conduct a literature search and meta-analysis of the 58 default studies (pooled n = 73,675) that fit our criteria. While our analysis reveals a considerable influence of defaults (d = 0.68, 95% confidence interval = 0.53–0.83), we also discover substantial variation: the majority of default studies find positive effects, but several do not find a significant effect, and two even demonstrate negative effects. To explain this variability, we draw on existing theoretical frameworks to examine the drivers of disparity in effectiveness. Our analysis reveals two factors that partially account for the variability in defaults’ effectiveness. First, we find that defaults in consumer domains are more effective and in environmental domains are less effective. Second, we find that defaults are more effective when they operate through endorsement (defaults that are seen as conveying what the choice architect thinks the decision-maker should do) or endowment (defaults that are seen as reflecting the status quo). We end with a discussion of possible directions for a future research program on defaults, including potential additional moderators, and implications for policy-makers interested in the implementation and evaluation of defaults.
This guidebook helps media professionals of small media houses develop a better understanding of how to use data for improving their social media performance. Also includes worksheets and templates.
Breakthrough ACTION has distilled guidance on social and behavior change (SBC) monitoring methods into a collection of technical notes. Each note provides an overview of a monitoring method that may be used for SBC programs along with a description of when to use the method and its strengths and weaknesses.
Based on benefit-cost analysis, increased productivity and employment may have substantial economic benefits over several decades: $1,251 to the state as a whole for each $1 invested in the SDR social marketing campaign. $36 in benefits to the state government for each $1 invested.
In a meta-analysis of real-life experiments drawn from food science, nutrition, health economics, marketing and psychology, the authors find that behavioural nudges - facilitating action rather than providing knowledge or inducing feelings - can reduce daily energy intake by up to 209 kcal, the same number of calories as in 21 cubes of sugar.
***Psychology offers three general propositions for understanding and intervening to increase uptake where vaccines are available and affordable. The first proposition is that thoughts and feelings can motivate getting vaccinated. Hundreds of studies have shown that risk beliefs and anticipated regret about infectious disease correlate reliably with getting vaccinated; low confidence in vaccine effectiveness and concern about safety correlate reliably with not getting vaccinated. We were surprised to find that few randomized trials have successfully changed what people think and feel about vaccines, and those few that succeeded were minimally effective in increasing uptake. The second proposition is that social processes can motivate getting vaccinated. Substantial research has shown that social norms are associated with vaccination, but few interventions examined whether normative messages increase vaccination uptake. Many experimental studies have relied on hypothetical scenarios to demonstrate that altruism and free riding (i.e., taking advantage of the protection provided by others) can affect intended behavior, but few randomized trials have tested strategies to change social processes to increase vaccination uptake. The third proposition is that interventions can facilitate vaccination directly by leveraging, but not trying to change, what people think and feel. These interventions are by far the most plentiful and effective in the literature. To increase vaccine uptake, these interventions build on existing favorable intentions by facilitating action (through reminders, prompts, and primes) and reducing barriers (through logistics and healthy defaults); these interventions also shape behavior (through incentives, sanctions, and requirements). Although identification of principles for changing thoughts and feelings to motivate vaccination is a work in progress, psychological principles can now inform the design of systems and policies to directly facilitate action.
We applied a Hidden Markov Model* (see Figure 1) to examine how and why behaviours did or did not change. The longitudinal repeated measure design meant we knew about food waste behaviour at two points (the amount of food wasted before and after the program), changes in the amount of food wasted reported over time for each household (more or less food wasted) and other factors (e.g. self-efficacy). By using a new method we could extend our understanding beyond the overall effect (households in the Waste Not Want Not program group wasted less food after participating when compared to the control group).
The results suggest that there was no significant difference in compliance rates between treatment and control schools six months post-treatment. To our knowledge, it is the first randomized controlled trial evaluating the use of descriptive social norms in increasing immunization compliance rates in a school-based setting. In addition, it serves as an example of embedding a behaviorally-informed experiment in a government program utilizing high-quality administrative data.
resources for mapping, assessing and weaving networks
