ArticleBulletin of the World Health Organization2021
Promotion of behavioural change for health in a heterogeneous population.
Article in Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 20 citations in OpenAlex.
- Differences in COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and uptake according to region of birth: findings from a cross-sectional survey in Sweden.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- The cover of randomness: validating implicit methods for the study of sensitive topics.Evolutionary human sciences · 2025Article
- When norm change hurts.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Green preferences sustain greenwashing: challenges in the cultural transition to a sustainable future.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Paradox of diversity in the collective brain.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Does social influence affect COVID-19 vaccination intention among the unvaccinated?Evolutionary human sciences · 2022Article
- Promotion of behavioural change for health in a heterogeneous population.Bulletin of the World Health Organization · 2021Article
- Harnessing the power of behavioural science to improve health.Bulletin of the World Health Organization · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Public health policy often involves implementing cost-efficient, large-scale interventions. When mandating or forbidding a specific behaviour is not permissible, public health professionals may draw on behaviour change interventions to achieve socially beneficial policy objectives. Interventions can have two main effects: (i) a direct effect on people initially targeted by the intervention; and (ii) an indirect effect mediated by social influence and by the observation of other people's behaviour. However, people's attitudes and beliefs can differ markedly throughout the population, with the result that these two effects can interact to produce unexpected, unhelpful and counterintuitive consequences. Public health professionals need to understand this interaction better. This paper illustrates the key principles of this interaction by examining two important areas of public health policy: tobacco smoking and vaccination. The example of antismoking campaigns shows when and how public health professionals can amplify the effects of a behaviour change intervention by taking advantage of the indirect pathway. The example of vaccination campaigns illustrates how underlying incentive structures, particularly anticoordination incentives, can interfere with the indirect effect of an intervention and stall efforts to scale up its implementation. Recommendations are presented on how public health professionals can maximize the total effect of behaviour change interventions in heterogeneous populations based on these concepts and examples.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.