Lecture: 'Transformative Health Psychology and Behaviour Change: Empowering Tomorrow'

Professor Angel Chater is the Co-Director of the NIHR-funded Policy Research Unit in Behavioural and Social Sciences, leading research hubs at both the University of Bedfordshire and at the Centre for Behaviour Change.

Angel will be delivering her inaugural professorial lecture on Thursday 13 March 2025, from 5:30pm - 7pm at G101 lecture theatre, University of Bedfordshire Luton campus.

What will the lecture be about?

When we consider the biggest successes and challenges in the world today, we can trace it back to three things: people, their behaviours, and the things that influence what they do. The major public health concerns we continue to face, such as obesity, diabetes and coronary heart disease, alongside poor mental health and premature death, reinforces the need to focus our efforts on embracing a strategic shift from treatment to prevention. The application of health psychology can aid in this mission by understanding behaviour and its outcomes, assessing the need of those in crisis, building capacity in those who can help and maximising the scale of the impact of behaviour change strategies.

This inaugural lecture will showcase the application of key theoretical and methodological approaches for behaviour change in these areas, conceptualised for Intervention Design, Delivery, Evaluation and Adoption Systems (IDDEAS), and the effectiveness of using these within healthcare settings. A selection of research programmes and examples of academic citizenship will be presented that have widened our ability to understand, enable and empower others, while offering evidence-based solutions to some of the biggest global health challenges.