In conversation: The need for the Human Behaviour-Change Project Part 2

Difficulties in synthesising evidence into forms that are useful to policymakers, planners and practitioners and the potential of the Human Behaviour-Change Project to overcome them are discussed by Jamie Hartmann-Boyce (University of Oxford) and Professor Bruce Chorpita (University of California, Los Angeles). We will ensure plenty of interaction both in the session and on a discussion board – we hope you can join us.

Speaker bios:

Jamie Hartmann-Boyce Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Evidence-Based Policy and Practice at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford. Her particular interests lie in evidence synthesis (both quantitative and qualitative) and the communication of complex information and data to inform policy and public action. Her research mainly consists of complex evidence synthesis work. She leads the Cochrane review of electronic cigarettes for smoking cessation, which is now a living review funded by Cancer Research UK, updated monthly, and is an editor for the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group.

Bruce Chorpita Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology and Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has published more than 300 scientific papers, and his ongoing research is aimed at improving the effectiveness of mental health service systems for children through innovation in mental health treatment design, clinical decision-making, information-delivery models, and service system architecture. From 2021 to 2022, Professor Chorpita served as a National Academy of Sciences Committee Member for Accelerating Behavioral Science Through Ontology Development and Use.

Susan Michie, FMedSci, FAcSS, FBA is Professor of Health Psychology and Director of UCL's Centre for Behaviour Change Professor Michie’s research focuses on human behaviour change in relation to health and the environment: how to understand it theoretically and apply theory and evidence to intervention and policy development, evaluation and implementation. Her research, collaborating with disciplines such as information science, environmental science, computer science and medicine, covers population, organisational and individual level interventions. She has served as an expert advisor on the UK’s Covid-19 Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behavioural Science (part of SAGE and the Lancet’s Covid-19 Commission. She is chair of WHO’s Behavioural Insights and Sciences Technical Advisory Group.

Janna Hastings, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Medical Knowledge and Decision Support, University of Zurich and University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. Janna has worked on ontology research and development for more than a decade across multiple disciplines. She develops the Mental Functioning Ontology and related projects, and until 2015 she was ontology lead and project coordinator for the ChEBI chemical ontology, during which time she also worked on related biological ontologies. She holds a PhD in Biological Sciences, an MSc in Computer Science and an MA in Philosophy.

Helpful links:

Project website

Publications

Open Science Framework

Github