An in-depth analysis of replies to COVID-19 vaccination outreach reveals thanks, angst — and much more.

Scientific evidence regularly guides policy decisions1, with behavioural science increasingly part of this process2. In April 2020, an influential paper3 proposed 19 policy recommendations (‘claims’) detailing how evidence from behavioural science could contribute to efforts to reduce impacts and end the COVID-19 pandemic. Here we assess 747 pandemic-related research articles that empirically investigated those claims. We report the scale of evidence and whether evidence supports them to indicate applicability for policymaking. Two independent teams, involving 72 reviewers, found evidence for 18 of 19 claims, with both teams finding evidence supporting 16 (89%) of those 18 claims. The strongest evidence supported claims that anticipated culture, polarization and misinformation would be associated with policy effectiveness. Claims suggesting trusted leaders and positive social norms increased adherence to behavioural interventions also had strong empirical support, as did appealing to social consensus or bipartisan agreement. Targeted language in messaging yielded mixed effects and there were no effects for highlighting individual benefits or protecting others. No available evidence existed to assess any distinct differences in effects between using the terms ‘physical distancing’ and ‘social distancing’. Analysis of 463 papers containing data showed generally large samples; 418 involved human participants with a mean of 16,848 (median of 1,699). That statistical power underscored improved suitability of behavioural science research for informing policy decisions. Furthermore, by implementing a standardized approach to evidence selection and synthesis, we amplify broader implications for advancing scientific evidence in policy formulation and prioritization.

“significant” p-value ≠ “significant” finding: The significance of statistical evidence for the true X (i.e., statistical significance of the p-value for the estimate of the true X) says absolutely nothing about the practical/scientific significance of the true X. That is, significance of evidence is not evidence of significance. Increasing your sample size in no way increases the practical/scientific significance of your practical/scientific hypothesis. “significant” p-value = “discernible” finding: The significance of statistical evidence for the true X does tell us how well the estimate can discern the true X. That is, significance of evidence is evidence of discernibility. Increasing your sample size does increase how well your finding can discern your practical/scientific hypothesis.

Our results show that a decadeslong effort to educate the U.S. public about recycling has succeeded in some ways but failed in others. These efforts have made recycling an option that consumers see as important – but to the detriment of more sustainable options. And it has not made people more effective recyclers.

Food waste is a systemic problem, with waste occurring at all stages in the supply chain and consumption process. There is a need to unpack which strategies, approaches and tools can be applied to reduce the amount of food wasted. Understanding the extent of social marketing principles used offers insights into the additional means that can be applied to increase voluntary behavioral change.

Social and behavioral science research proliferated during the COVID-19 pandemic, reflecting the substantial increase in influence of behavioral science in public health and public policy more broadly. This review presents a comprehensive assessment of 742 scientific articles on human behavior during COVID-19. Two independent teams evaluated 19 substantive policy recommendations (“claims”) on potentially critical aspects of behaviors during the pandemic drawn from the most widely cited behavioral science papers on COVID-19. Teams were made up of original authors and an independent team, all of whom were blinded to other team member reviews throughout. Both teams found evidence in support of 16 of the claims; for two claims, teams found only null evidence; and for no claims did the teams find evidence of effects in the opposite direction. One claim had no evidence available to assess. Seemingly due to the risks of the pandemic, most studies were limited to surveys, highlighting a need for more investment in field research and behavioral validation studies. The strongest findings indicate interventions that combat misinformation and polarization, and to utilize effective forms of messaging that engage trusted leaders and emphasize positive social norms.

Iceland went from 42% of its 15 and 16 year olds having been drunk in the past month in 1998 to only 5% in 2018. This change is a great case study in offering alternative behaviors and shifting social norms on a national scale.

In our study, no evidence was found for a protective effect of the most common UK safer gambling message. Alternative interventions should be considered as part of an evidence-based public health approach to reducing gambling-related harm.

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.

In our coffee room experiment, we found that contributions to an honesty box for paying for coffee substantially increased when we stuck photocopied images of eyes on the wall in the coffee corner, compared to when we stuck images of flowers on the wall. This makes the point that people are generally nicer, more cooperative, more ethical, when they believe they are being watched, a point that I believe, in general terms, to be true.

Emotions and worries can reduce individuals’ available attention and affect economic decisions. In a four-week experiment with 2,384 US adults, offering free access to a popular mindfulness meditation app (Headspace) that costs $13 per month improves mental health, productivity and decisionmaking. First, it causes a 0.44 standard deviation reduction in symptoms of stress, anxiety, and depression, comparable to the impacts of expensive in-person therapy, with improvements even among participants with minimal or mild symptoms at baseline. Second, it increases earnings on a proofreading task by 1.9 percent. Third, it makes decision-making more stable across emotional states, reducing the interference of personal worries with risk choices. Overall, our results demonstrate the potential of affordable mindfulness meditation apps to improve mental health, productivity, and the impact of emotions on economic decisions.

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.

In this study, a 10% increase in SSB prices was associated with a 3% relative decrease in prevalence of overweight or obesity among adolescent girls. Improved weight-related outcomes were small and largely observed in girls with heavier weight and in cities where price increases were greater than 10% after the tax.

Results In the 34 day period after the three events with the strongest public attention (the song’s release, the MTV Video Music Awards 2017, and Grammy Awards 2018), Lifeline received an excess of 9915 calls (95% confidence interval 6594 to 13 236), an increase of 6.9% (95% confidence interval 4.6% to 9.2%, P

Purposeful ads that are executed well are more effective than ads that do not show a company is committed to wider social benefits, according to the research, which was commissioned by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. Successful purposeful ads also scored more highly both when looking at how far they improve market share and the extent to which they build brands in the long term, the study found. Meanwhile, less successful purposeful ads, which account for almost half of purposeful ads in the study, have the opposite result. They scored far lower than campaigns with no wider social message.

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.

Ride-hailing apps have allowed more binging—and increased demand for bartenders

Many participants were perfectly aware of alternative services. But the patients’ perception was that such services were overstretched or hard to access. In a structured survey of 25 departments, emergency staff shared similar perceptions. Perhaps what seems to be inappropriate or avoidable use is actually an active and semi-informed choice.

the report sits uncomfortably with evidence that information needs vary across contexts; a 2018 review of awareness raising interventions across different target populations found success varied markedly. [11] The same message that will draw attention from policy makers may not resonate with the public and care providers around the world.

You can either have rapid uptake OR large-scale adoption, but generally you don't find both together in these types of initiatives.

demonstrates an important link between expenditure on tobacco control mass media and rates of successful attempts to quit smoking. The more is spent

However, when the ZCCP video was combined with the social nudge : “Many people in your community have also watched this video,’’ the video shifted the perception of social norms towards less acceptance of GBV i.e. people were more likely to believe that their community found GBV unacceptable and more likely to think that their community thought GBV was a serious issue.

research on health comm messaging effects

We test the effectiveness of an entertainment education TV series, MTV Shuga, aimed at providing information and changing attitudes and behaviors related to HIV/AIDS. Using a simple model we show that “edutainment“ can work through an individual or a social channel. We conducted a randomized controlled trial in urban Nigeria where young viewers were exposed to MTV Shuga or to a placebo TV series. Among those exposed to MTV Shuga, we created additional variation in the social messages they received and in the people with whom they watched the show. We find significant improvements in knowledge and attitudes towards HIV and risky sexual behavior. Treated subjects are twice as likely to get tested for HIV eight months after the intervention. We also find reductions in STDs among women. These effects are stronger for viewers who report being more involved with the narrative, consistent with the psychological underpinnings of edutainment. Our experimental manipulations of the social norm component did not produce significantly different results from the main treatment. The individual effect of edutainment thus seems to have prevailed in the context of our study.

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.

Fear appeals are effective. The present meta-analysis found that fear appeals were successful at influencing attitudes, intentions, and behaviors across nearly all conditions that were analyzed. Even when a moderator was unrelated to fear appeal effectiveness, fear appeals were still more effective than comparison treatments. Further, there was not one level of any moderator that we tested for which fear appeals backfired to produce worse outcomes relative to the comparison groups.

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.

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.