Social Behavioral Design for Public Health Programmes

About

Many public health challenges are deeply rooted in human behaviour, and most programs depend upon people adopting healthy behaviors. Behavioral design applies insights from behavioral and social sciences to understand and influence health-related behaviors. Integrating social behavior change (SBC) into the development of public health policies, programs, and practices is essential if programs are to be impactful and resilient.

In this course, we will look at how to generate, gather and analyze social and behavioral data. Participants will learn how to make data tell the stories that in turn can inform practice and programming. This participatory course will show how behavioral insights can be used to develop effective behavior change communications and other interventions including psychological inoculation against misinformation.

Impact come from programs, not single interventions, and this course will consider the development of behaviour-informed strategies, and how we may inform public health policies with SBC insights.

Course leader

Dr. Angus Thomson (Irimi)

Target group

Practitioners, researchers, and graduate students

Course aim

By the end of the course participants will:
- Understand the importance of designing public health interventions with a social behavioural insights lens;
- Understand how the communication ecosystem, including misinformation, can influence public health behaviours;
- Be able to develop effective, context-specific, behaviorally-informed SBC communications to encourage vaccine acceptance and demand;
- Apply learnings to a use case of psychological inoculation against misinformation;
- Understand the potential impact of effective interpersonal communication;
- Develop a plan for a behaviorally-designed program to increase vaccine uptake.

Fee info

Discounts are available for LMICs, PhD/Master Students, and members of partner institutions (USI, SUPSI, SWISS TPH, and SSPH+). To know more about the fees, what is included, and available discounts, please contact us at our email (info@ssph-lugano-summerschool.ch) or visit our website