Behavioural science

Applying behavioural science in activities aiming for better health and wellbeing can help improve their implementation and optimise their impact: helping all people in Wales live longer, healthier lives, now and in future generations.

If you are a health and care professional leading, planning, developing or delivering work aiming for better health and wellbeing for the people of Wales, then these pages could help you use behavioural science in your efforts to improve effectiveness and efficiency from your activities.

Activity to improve or protect health and wellbeing and reduce health inequity almost always relies on individuals doing something differently. Nearly all health interventions, from legislation to service delivery, require changes in the observable, measurable actions (behaviours) of people to be effective, whether that be of staff or the public, and often both. 

Behavioural science is a rich transdisciplinary field drawing from psychology, sociology, anthropology, neuroscience, behavioural economics and more, and it offers powerful tools to understand and influence human behaviour.

Whether ‘interventions’ are services, policy, quality improvement, communications or partnership and systems working, the outcomes and impact will likely be dependent on behaviours. Applying evidence-based principles, methods, theories and models from behavioural science to inform your work can help you you get the best outcomes for the public for the investment.

What is behavioural science?

Behavioural science involves using robust scientific methods, gathering of evidence and data, and the development of models and theories, to predict and study human behaviour, what enables it, what prevents it, and critically how best to elicit or change it.

Behavioural science is a broad, interdisciplinary field that seeks to understand how people behave and why in their real-world contexts. It draws from psychology, sociology, anthropology, behavioural economics, and other social sciences to explore the underlying drivers of human behaviour.

Crucially, behavioural science recognises that behaviour is not always rational or conscious, and is influenced by a range of factors including cognitive, psychological, social and environmental drivers – the contexts for our behaviours. This is important because it moves beyond assumptions about what people should do, and instead focuses on what they actually do, offering grounded insights into how decisions are made and therefore the actions that are taken in everyday life. Using behavioural science is in stark contrast to assumptions that people, staff or the public, will automatically act in ways that benefit themselves or service effectiveness when given information, advice, awareness raising or training, for example.

Why is behavioural science important?

There is good evidence showing that using behavioural science can make your activities to improve health and wellbeing more effective and efficient improving implementation and optimising outcomes.

This is because, almost all interventions for better health and wellbeing will inevitably involve someone, somewhere, performing a behaviour. Whether for the effective implementation of your work or on the route to the better health outcome, some groups of people will need to do something new or different.

Using the tools, models, theories and methods from behavioural science will help diagnose behavioural problems and identify solutions by breaking complex goals into specific, observable behaviours. Using behavioural science will help you uncover the important behavioural drivers (often called behavioural insights) and use them to develop interventions that are not only evidence-based but also human-centred – therefore likely to be more effective and efficient. Even small changes – like changing words in a letter to be more behaviourally informed – have been shown to result in big changes to health outcomes. For guidance on applying behavioural science, see the principles for using behavioural science in practice.

Behavioural science has been shown to improve outcomes in a large range of health topics, going way beyond its traditional application for addressing health harming behaviours and much further than communications interventions aiming at changing knowledge or raising awareness amongst the public.  There is good evidence demonstrating improved outcomes in topics such as: antimicrobial resistance, immunisation, health emergencies, mental health, screening services, hospital appointments, health inequities, as well as non-communicable disease risk behaviours, and HIV/AIDS. In fact the World Health Organisation (WHO) suggest that behavioural science is applicable to ALL areas of health, health services and quality of health care, every setting that determines health behaviours, and everyone whose behaviours influence better health outcomes.

The Behavioural Science Unit

The Behavioural Science Unit (BSU) at Public Health Wales offers support for decision makers and professionals planning, developing, and providing activities aiming for better health and wellbeing for the people of Wales, to apply behavioural science to improve impact and optimise outcomes. This support is available to anyone working for better health and wellbeing and improving health equity in Wales, whether that ‘work’ is services, policy, quality improvement, communications, or partnerships and systems working.

The Behavioural Science Unit works with a wide range of partners-including Welsh Government, NHS Wales, local authorities, academia, other behavioural science units, and international bodies like the WHO—to apply behavioural science across diverse public health topics such as vaccination, screening, smoking cessation, healthy weight, climate action, and health communications. The unit offer specialist support through behavioural diagnosis, intervention design, and evaluation, using evidence-based frameworks, as well as producing guides and tools, delivering training, and supporting behaviour change projects to embed behavioural science into policy, services, improvement, communications and systems working across Wales.

What can the Behavioural Science Unit offer?

The BSU provides a range of ‘services’ for partners to enable the use of behavioural science to support their efforts towards improvement of  their activities and the optimisation of their outcomes for better health and wellbeing. Learn more about the Behavioural Science Unit and what they offer.

Responsive service

The BSU provides timely support to requests from partners to support the use of behavioural science in their practice. For staff who are planning, developing or delivering services, policy, quality improvement, communications and systems working activities. From consultation, advice and guidance, through bespoke training and development, to the doing of behavioural science within your work, the BSU can help you to use behavioural science supporting improved effectiveness and efficiency from your activities.

Tools and guidance

A range of practical tools, guides, reports and infographics are available to support the application of behavioural science across all stages of work. These resources include both foundational guidance and topic-specific materials, showcasing how behavioural science can be effectively integrated into a variety of public health contexts. Access all publications created by the Behavioural Science Unit.

The quarterly e-bulletin Bitesize BeSci is available to explore examples of behavioural science in practice across Wales. Each edition includes explainers on applied behavioural science, guest commentary from experts and system leaders, updates on events, funding opportunities, new offers from the Behavioural Science Unit, and other relevant developments in the field. Subscribe to the quarterly e-bulletin, Bitesize BeSci.

Training, learning and development

The BSU offers a range of training and development to enable the more routine use of behavioural science in activities for better health and wellbeing. The Unit provides bespoke training and development as part of our responsive service to meet partners’ needs. The BSU is also developing a multi-level capability building programme, which includes an e-learning module for all staff in the foundations and principles of behavioural science and a Behaviour Change Agents programme a multi-format course to support staff to use behavioural science in their practice and support their teams to do so. The Unit will also provide a behavioural science for leaders programme, supporting leaders to create the conditions for the routine use of behavioural science to help service optimisation in their work areas.

Behaviourally Informed Communications Initiative (BICI)

The Unit offers a regular programme to support colleagues who use communication interventions to change behaviour. Whether the aim of the communication is to improve or optimise service uptake by the public or enable staff to support service development or improvement. BICI offers a blend of direct support from the BSU, guided workshops, and self-directed activities to help teams increase the impact of their communications and develop their own behavioural science skills.

Learn more about the Behaviourally Informed Communications Initiative (BICI).

Share and learn

Designed to improve conversation, connection, collaboration and capability amongst all professionals and decision-makers using behavioural science in their efforts for better health in Wales (and beyond), the Behavioural Science Community for Wales has hundreds of colleagues. Join the Behavioural Science Community for Wales.

Learn more about the Behavioural Science Community for Wales.

Better health through behavioural science – an enabling plan for Wales

Improving health and reducing inequity depends on understanding and influencing human behaviour – from everyday decisions by the public to actions taken by professionals and policymakers. This enabling plan sets out a clear, evidence-based route map to embed behavioural science across the Welsh public sector, enhancing the impact of health-related policies, services, and interventions. Aligned with Public Health Wales’ Long Term Strategy to 2035 and supporting the current priorities across the public sector, the plan outlines seven key action areas to build lasting capability, systems, and motivation for behaviourally-informed decision-making. Explore how behavioural science can help your organisation deliver better outcomes – and how you can be part of this transformation. Access the full enabling plan drafted to help achieve this.