Perhaps the single biggest assumption that public health campaigns make is that humans are logical creatures. Give them good information and they’ll act on it. But, what if we’re not logical? On March 26, Matt Dugan of Shadow Associates in Behavior Change presented A Case for Evidence-Based Health Communication at the Vermont Department of Health. This hour-long presentation explored how advances in behavior science are benefiting public health campaigns.
“Behavior science is about how we really act—not how we think we act. By using an evidence-based approach and persuasion science, we can achieve much better results in public health campaigns. This is critical in the realm of disease prevention, health maintenance, immunizations, and other important issues,” said Dugan. “It’s fair to say that in the past, lots of public money has been spent on campaigns that have been ineffective or worse.”
Behavior science has seen a surge in popularity recently, popularized by such books as Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, and Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. This talk showed examples of campaigns gone awry and explained the process of creating evidence-based communication.
“These are exciting times,” said Dugan. “Researchers have developed some exceptional tools that can truly help improve public health. All we have to do is use them.”
About Shadow ABC:
Shadow Associates in Behavior Change is a Burlington firm that brings researchers and producers together under one roof with the aim of producing more effective health and environmental strategies and messaging. Relying on peer-reviewed literature and an evidence-based approach, Shadow ABC employs rigorous research standards to both create and evaluate campaigns.
VIEW RECORDED PRESENTATION: http://healthvermont.gov/events/grand_rounds/20150326_dugan.wmv
Source: Shadow. www.shadowabc.com