“We don’t have a healthcare problem. We have a behavior problem.” – Small Scale Behavioral Community Interventions

Humans possess an excellent capacity for behavioral change, but decades of research show that our ability to make optimal choices and to change is limited. Research in behavioral sciences has revealed that human behavior and decision-making are bounded rational, habitual, and influenced by the environment. As a result, people make sub-optimal decisions and misbehave, even though most people are aware that their habits or lifestyle is unhealthy. The World Health Organization warn us of a future epidemic in non-communicable diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. Traditional methods such as regulations, bans, campaigns, training and education do not result in full compliance in healthier choices. This, regardless of whether it is overweight, the transmission of infectious diseases, or substance abuse. Therefore, more effective interventions are needed. To improve health outcomes nudging or rearranging the environmental conditions might be a viable tool to influence people’s everyday decisions toward healthier choices. This implies an analytic and experimental approach to changing behavior by integrating insights about human behavior and its boundaries, biases and habits into the choice architecture. It is essential to manage behavioral change at all scales – from individuals to small groups to large populations to cope with our society`s challenges. This presentation will give you some examples of small scale behavioral community interventions.