Embedding Behaviour Change in Public Health: From digital and population-focussed solutions to commissioning practice Seminar

Public Health has long been an evidenced based discipline. Use of clinical and epidemiological evidence to make decisions about how to manage health improvement and health protection is at the heart of public health practice. The context in which public health operates however, has been changing. Worldwide, the biggest threats to morbidity and mortality are increasingly due to non-communicable and lifestyle related factors. These include increases in rates of overweight and obesity, lack of physical activity, low rates of breastfeeding, high and increasing rates of sexually transmitted infections, smoking and unsafe levels of alcohol use. Increasingly, there is a need to draw on evidence from the behavioural sciences (including Psychology) to adequately address 21st century public health priorities. There is also growing recognition of this at Public Health England and amongst other bodies responsible for the public’s health. In this presentation I will discuss a number of recent and ongoing behaviour change focussed research studies where myself and my team have developed and evaluated (or plan to evaluate) public health interventions targeted at some of the health problems outlined above. These include the stopapp; a web-based intervention designed to address barriers to attendance at stop smoking services; iFEED; another web-based intervention designed to promote breastfeeding and for those who need it, safe formula feeding of infants by new parents; and WrappedTM an intervention promoting condom use amongst those requesting Chlamydia self-screening kits online. In addition, I will discuss ongoing research exploring and addressing the barriers to better use of behaviour change science and evaluation in public health practice; known as the EQUIP project. Through this body of work and our strong collaborative working relationships within the public health workforce, I will explain how we are aiming to contribute to the movement to better align behavioural science evidence and public health practice.

Speaker information

Professor Katherine Brown, Coventry University. Since completing a PhD studentship at Sheffield Hallam University in 2004 Professor Katherine Brown has held posts as Lecturer and later Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Coventry University and for three years was Course Director of the MSc Health Psychology programme. In September 2011, Professor Brown took up the position of Reader in eHealth and Wellbeing Interventions, a joint post between Coventry University and Public Health Warwickshire. She has published papers in psychology, medical and public health journals and obtained funding from research councils including the British Academy and Medical Research Council, the NHS, the European Commission and commercial sources. Professor Brown is currently Acting Lead of the Behaviour and Interventions Research sub-theme in CTEHR. Her research interests include the application of psychological behavioural change theories and evidence to the design and development of public health interventions; the application of eHealth as a format for intervention delivery; interventions to support sexual health and wellbeing outcomes, including the work looking at ending Female Genital Mutilation amongst migrant African communities in Europe. Evaluation of interventions is also a key focus of her work.