Designing Effective Interventions for Health Behaviour Change: An Introduction

Details
Many interventions which seek to promote health are dependent on effectively changing people’s behaviour – whether this is the behaviour of the public, health professionals or users of health services. Often, our interventions fail, because we do not take account of what is really causing the behaviour or use this in developing our interventions. Behavioural science has made significant advances within the last decade in developing methodologies available to intervention designers. For success, intervention designers should:
Use and develop a theoretical understanding of the behaviour they wish to change and target factors which are likely to effect change
Describe interventions to facilitate replication (using behaviour change technique taxonomies) and to test the mechanisms of action through which interventions work

Aims and Objectives
In this workshop, participants will have an opportunity to learn about, and practice using, emerging methods for designing and evaluating behavioural interventions. On completion of the workshop, participants will be able to:
• Apply a structured approach to using behavioural theory for intervention development
• Use the COM-B (capability, opportunity, motivation – behaviour) model and the Behaviour Change Wheel to design interventions
• Specify and describe intervention content using Behaviour Change Technique taxonomies
• Test the theoretical underpinnings of interventions
• Understand processes of change as part of intervention evaluation

Workshop Facilitators
• Prof Molly Byrne, Health Research Board (HRB) Research Leader and Director of the Health Behaviour Change Research Group at NUI Galway.
• Dr Jenny Mc Sharry, Lecturer at the School of Psychology, and Co-Director, Health Behaviour Change Research Group, NUI Galway, and Registered Health Psychologist with the UK Health and Care Professions Council.
• Dr Oonagh Meade, Postdoctoral Researcher, Health Behaviour Change Research Group at NUI Galway.

Intended Participants
This workshop is for researchers, health and social care professionals, policy makers and students interested in behaviour change. Please feel free to circulate to colleagues and contacts who may be interested in attending.

Booking
Places are limited and book up fast. To avoid disappointment, book on Eventbrite now!

For further assistance, please email valerie.parker@nuigalway.ie or phone 091 494 454.