Behaviour Change by Design: Generating and Implementing Evidence to Improve Health for All

Reducing food, alcohol and tobacco consumption would dramatically reduce non-communicable disease and, since these behaviours cluster by deprivation, would also reduce health inequalities. However, progress in achieving such behaviour change is slow. Traditional approaches to behaviour change involve providing information with, at best, modest population-level effects and sometimes increased inequalities. Conversely, Choice Architecture interventions (“Nudges”) have potentially larger, more equitable effects, involving re-designing environments e.g. reducing plate size to reduce food consumption. However, evidence of effectiveness in real-world settings and understanding of mechanisms are limited. We will bridge this knowledge gap through a novel collaboration between behavioural and cognitive sciences. In the most ambitious co-ordinated set of studies to date, we propose field studies to estimate effect sizes of promising Choice Architecture interventions to reduce food, alcohol and tobacco consumption. Enabled by unprecedented collaborations, these will be conducted in supermarkets, bars and cafeterias and interventions optimised through laboratory studies determining mechanisms. We will run international workshops, public engagement activities and a Behaviour Change Summit to facilitate implementing the evidence generated, overseen by an Implementation Advisory Panel. This will enable us to realise our vision of accelerating progress in changing behaviour by re-designing environments to improve health for all.