ArticleHealth psychology review2016
Behaviour Centred Design: towards an applied science of behaviour change.
Article in Health psychology review, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 85 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
85 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 227 citations in OpenAlex.
- Interventions to improve hand hygiene in community settings: a systematic review of theories, barriers and enablers, behaviour change techniques and hand hygiene station design features.BMJ global health · 2025Pooled it
- Behavioural factors influencing hand hygiene practices across domestic, institutional and public community settings: a systematic review and qualitative meta-synthesis.BMJ global health · 2025Pooled it
- Impact of mHealth interventions on maternal, newborn, and child health from conception to 24 months postpartum in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review.BMC medicine · 2024Pooled it
- Effect of Behavior Change Intervention on Complementary Food Contamination in Rural Bangladesh: A Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial.The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2025Trial
- Trial
- Application of the behaviour-centred design to understand facilitators and deterrents of hand hygiene among healthcare providers: findings from a formative phase of a cluster randomised trial in the Kampala Metropolitan area.BMC health services research · 2024Trial
- Impact of a school-based water and hygiene intervention on child health and school attendance in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: a cluster-randomised controlled trial.BMC medicine · 2024Trial
- Effect of a low-cost, behaviour-change intervention on latrine use and safe disposal of child faeces in rural Odisha, India: a cluster-randomised controlled trial.The Lancet. Planetary health · 2022Trial
- Cluster-randomised trial to test the effect of a behaviour change intervention on toilet use in rural India: results and methodological considerations.BMC public health · 2020Trial
- Process evaluation improves delivery of a nutrition-sensitive agriculture programme in Burkina Faso.Maternal & child nutrition · 2018Trial
- Disentangling the effects of a multiple behaviour change intervention for diarrhoea control in Zambia: a theory-based process evaluation.Globalization and health · 2017Trial
- Trial of a Novel Intervention to Improve Multiple Food Hygiene Behaviors in Nepal.The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2017Trial
- Theory-based formative research on oral rehydration salts and zinc use in Lusaka, Zambia.BMC public health · 2016Trial
- Article
- Handwashing as a socially co-produced practice: an analysis through cultural-historical activity theory.Frontiers in public health · 2026Review
- Article
- From triple-mode network to triple-layered model - novel insights in social cognition.Indian journal of psychiatry · 2025Article
- Translating Formative Research into Intervention Content: Experiences with Face Washing for Trachoma Control in Rural Ethiopia.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Can behavioral science advance breastfeeding-friendly primary care? Key findings from an evaluation in Kosovo.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Exploring the complexity of the implementation determinants of human papillomavirus vaccination in Africa through a systems thinking lens: A rapid review.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2024Review
25 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Behaviour change has become a hot topic. We describe a new approach, Behaviour Centred Design (BCD), which encompasses a theory of change, a suite of behavioural determinants and a programme design process. The theory of change is generic, assuming that successful interventions must create a cascade of effects via environments, through brains, to behaviour and hence to the desired impact, such as improved health. Changes in behaviour are viewed as the consequence of a reinforcement learning process involving the targeting of evolved motives and changes to behaviour settings, and are produced by three types of behavioural control mechanism (automatic, motivated and executive). The implications are that interventions must create surprise, revalue behaviour and disrupt performance in target behaviour settings. We then describe a sequence of five steps required to design an intervention to change specific behaviours: Assess, Build, Create, Deliver and Evaluate. The BCD approach has been shown to change hygiene, nutrition and exercise-related behaviours and has the advantages of being applicable to product, service or institutional design, as well as being able to incorporate future developments in behaviour science. We therefore argue that BCD can become the foundation for an applied science of behaviour change.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.