Most decisions in policy, service or communications development are made by people who are not behavioural science experts, and they do not need to be. However, behavioural science can add value to the efforts of nearly all practitioners and policy makers – supporting that development is a major goal for the Unit. Developing an understanding of the basic principles of behavioural science and how to enable its application within a project, team, or organisation are key to increasing its use across the system.
Interest in behavioural science is quickly building, there are some great resources, tools, and guidance already out there for you to learn from and apply in your everyday practice. In addition to sharing our own resources, we have collated what we have found useful in the pages below.
We’ve split them up depending on which step in the behavioural science process you’re currently at, more details about the steps can be found here.
Please note that some of the information links included are from external organisations and no Welsh language equivalent is available. We apologise for this.
Define Diagnose Select Intervention Type Select Implementation Type Build Intervention Deliver General
| Title | Author | Description | Resources |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Brief Introduction to the COM-B Model of Behaviour and the PRIME Theory of Motivation | Robert West and Susan Michie | A journal article introducing the COM-B model (capabilty, opportunity, motivation, behaviour) and the PRIME theory of motivation | View resource |
| Achieving Behaviour Change: A Guide for Local Government | Public Health England | A guide to applying behavioural science for local governments | View resource |
| Achieving Behaviour Change: A Guide for National Government | Public Health England | A guide to applying behavioural science for national governments | View resource |
| Approaches to Behaviour Change | Health Education England | A video introducing behaviour change techniques | View webpage |
| Barrier Identification Tool | Behavioural Insights Team | Interactive tool to identify and categorise the barriers to a behaviour you're trying to change | View webpage |
| Behaviour Change and the Environment | Local Government Association | A webpage containing useful resources to support delivering a climate behaviour change project with local government settings. | View webpage |
| Behaviour Change Scale-Up Toolkit | Monash University and Behaviour Works, Australia | A tool kit to help practitioners scale-up their interventions | View webpage |
| Behaviour Change Technique Taxonomy | UCL Centre for Behaviour Change | Details of 93 behaviour change techniques (BCTs) with labels, definitions and examples. | View webpage |
| Behaviour Change Techniques and Their Mechanisms of Action | Carey RN, Connell LE, Johnston M, Rothman AJ, de Bruin M, Kelly MP, Michie S. | This study identifies the links between Behaviour Change Techniques and Mechanisms of Action described by authors of a corpus of published literature. | View webpage |
| Behaviour Change Techniques Review: Descriptive Studies | Office for Health Improvement & Disparities | Guidance that explains how to use a behaviour change techniques review to evaluate your digital health product. | View webpage |
| Behaviour Change Techniques Taxonomy Training | UCL Centre for Behaviour Change | Training on the behaviour change technique taxonomy | View webpage |
| Behaviour Change Theory | Choosing Wisely (Australia) | This document provides an overview of behaviour change theory, and the steps you need to take to apply it in practice | View resource |
| Behavioural and Social Drivers of vaccination: Tools and Practical Guidance for Achieving High Uptake | World Health Organisation | Behavioural and soial drivers of vaccination: tools and practical guidance for achieving high uptake. | View webpage |
| Behavioural Diagnosis – Mapping insights and selecting intervention functions | Behavioural Science Unit | A practical, interactive tool to help you prioritise which barriers and/or facilitators to target based on behavioural insights, before exploring which intervention functions may be most appropriate to adopt. | View resource |
| Behavioural Diagnosis – Selecting implementation types | Behavioural Science Unit | A practical, interactive tool to help you consider which implementation types may be the most appropriate for delivering your chosen intervention. | View resource |
| Behavioural Diagnosis: How to collect behavioural insights | Behavioural Science Unit | A practical, interactive tool to help you develop a systematic understanding of the influences of your target behaviour, in your target population. | View resource |
| Behavioural Discovery Tool | Behavioural Science Unit | A practical, online tool to walk you through the essential considerations to understanding and influencing behaviours that may be at play in your better-health issue. | View webpage |
| Behavioural Evidence Hub | Behavioural Evidence Hub | A repository of behaviour change projects, resources and checklists | View webpage |
| Behavioural Insight Projects | Local Government Association | A repository of case studies funded by the Local Government Association, including public health, climate change, children and young people, community safety and more | View webpage |
| Behavioural Insights Templates, Letters and Tools | Local Government Association | A collection of behavioural science tools which local authorities have used to successfully influence residents behaviour. | View webpage |
| Behavioural Science and Disease Prevention: Psychological Guidance | British Psychological Society | Guidance providing behavioural analysis of vaccination behaviour using Covid-19 as an example. Applicable to policy and communication. | View resource |
| Better Evaluation | Global Evaluation Initiative | Global collaboration aimed at improving evaluation practice and theory through co-creation, curation, and sharing of information | View webpage |
| Cost of Living Crisis in Wales; Applying Behavioural Science (Behavioural Science Unit) | Behavioural Science Unit | An infographic explaining how COM-B can be used to increase access to services | View resource |
| Countering Misinformation | Local Government Association | A range of resources from the Local Government Association aimed at tackling misinformation. | View webpage |
| Create a Custom Dataset | Office for National Statistics | Build custom data sets to get to know your population better through census data. | View webpage |
| Culture Change Through Communications: Applying Behavioural Science to Communications in Police Forces to Help Combat Sexism and Misogyny | College of Policing, University College London Centre for Behavioural Change | An easy-to-use reference document that draws on behavioural science principles and evidence to provide actionable advice, with the aim of supporting people working in – and with – police communications teams. | View resource |
| Deciding on a target behaviour and target population tool | Behavioural Science Unit | A practical, interactive tool to help you consider and define your target behaviour and target population, as you create a ‘behavioural specification’. | View resource |
| Decision Support for Behavioural and Social Science Frameworks for Public Health | Behavioural Science Public Health Network and Department for Health and Social Care | The tool is designed for practitioners and policy makers working in public health who want to use frameworks or methods from the behavioural or social sciences to improve services or processes where behaviour may play a part. It is primarily designed for those without specialist knowledge of the behavioural and social sciences, although it is hoped it will be useful for all practitioners. The decision support tool is a single page matrix, designed to be kept to hand to refer to whenever working on something that might benefit from the application of Behavioural Science. It proposes models and frameworks that can be used at various stages in the development of an intervention. | View resource |
| Designing and Evaluating Behaviour Change Interventions: The 5 Step Approach to Evaluation | Scottish Government | An evaluation resource aimed at both service providers and funders who aim to promote behaviour change. | View webpage |
| Developing Behaviourally Informed Communications (Behavioural Science Unit) | Behavioural Science Unit | An interactive tool to help you take a behaviourally informed approach when designing your communications | View resource |
| EAST Framework | Behavioural Insights Team | Information on how to make behaviour change easy, attractive, social and timely (EAST). | View webpage |
| Employing Behaviour Change Roles in Local Authorities | Chadwick P, Constable M, and McManus J | A guide to understanding the key considerations to make when recruiting for behaviour change roles within local authorities including types of skill sets, job descriptions and checklists. | View resource |
| Enabling Behaviour Change | Department for Transport | This guidance outlines some of the key issues to consider in the development of initiatives which seek to enable changes in people’s travel behaviour and offers practical tips when considering options for addressing barriers to sustainable behaviours. | View webpage |
| Encouraging Hand Hygiene in the Community | British Psychological Society | A summary of COM-B based insights and ready-to-take actions on how to increase hand washing behaviour in the community with focus on Covid-19. | View resource |
| Evaluating Behaviour Change Interventions | Behavioural Science Unit | Written in collaboration with the Central Evaluation Team and Public Health Wales, this is a practical and interactive tool that identifies key points to take into consideration when you’re planning how to test and evaluate your behaviour change intervention. | View resource |
| Evaluating Behaviourally and Culturally Informed Health Interventions in Complex Settings | World Health Organisation | A framework for evaluating health interventions in complex settings | View webpage |
| Evaluating Digital Health Products | Office for Health Improvements and Disparities | A guide to help anyone developing or running a digital health product to conduct an evaluation | View webpage |
| Evaluation in Health and Wellbeing | Office for Health Improvements and Disparities | A guide to help increase knowledge, understanding and capability in evaluating health and wellbeing projects | View webpage |
| Everyone Knows What Behaviour Is But They Just Don’t Agree On It | Calhoun, AJ and El Hady, A | This resource describes a survey that identifed how the term ‘‘behaviour’’ is used, and what it means in different academic communities, showing that important differences exist and sharing six behaviour clusters and seven archetype clusters. | View webpage |
| Evidence Review: The Contribution of Behavioural Science to Addressing the Social and Wider Determinants of Health | World Health Organisation | This report was commissioned by the Behavioural Insights Unit. It discusses the contribution of behavioural sciences, broadly defined, to addressing social and wider determinants of health, and describes findings about differences and similarities between the two approaches. | View webpage |
| Exploring factors influencing the application of behavioural science within public health practice across Wales: A summary report | Behavioural Science Unit | A report into the exploration of factors influencing the application of behavioural science within public health practice across Wales. | View resource |
| Family Weight Management: Changing Behaviour Techniques | UK Government | This guide summarises work to explore the behaviour change techniques (BCTs), which should feature in approaches to support families with primary school-aged children (4-11 years) on a healthy weight journey. Such approaches fit within a local place based whole systems approach to promoting a healthy weight. The behaviour change techniques referred to in the guide are from the Behaviour Change Centre Techniques Taxonomy Version 1 (BCTT.v1) | View webpage |
| Fingertips | Office for Health Improvement & Disparities | Fingertips is a large public health data collection organised into themed profiles for various health topics and indicators. | View webpage |
| From Theory to Frameworks: Putting Behavioural Science to Work | The Decision Lab | This article discusses the popular theories and frameworks used in behavioural science. | View webpage |
| Good Practice Principles for Ethical Behavioural Science in Public Policy | Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development | This good practice guide offers practitioners and policy makers step-by-step guidance to prompt deliberations into how to use behavioural science ethically for public policy. It is designed to be a practical resource to promote the responsible use of behavioural science in the public sector. | View webpage |
| Health In Europe Podcast: Mind Over Matter: The Influence of Behavioural and Cultural Factors on Health Outcomes | World Health Organisation | Behavioral and cultural insights utilize social sciences to tackle ongoing health issues. In this conversation Bhanu Bhatnagar, Press and Media Relations Officer at WHO Regional Office for Europe, spoke with Dr Saad Omer, Director of the Yale Institute for Global Health, to find out more about why behavioural and cultural insights matter to public health. | View webpage |
| Identifying and Applying Behaviour Change Techniques | Behavioural Science Unit | A practical, interactive tool that introduces Behaviour Change Techniques, considered to be the ‘active ingredients’ of behaviour change interventions. The tool walks you through how to identify and deliver Behaviour Change Techniques, drawing on the COM-B model and Behaviour Change Wheel. | View resource |
| IHI Psychology of Change Framework | The Institute for Healthcare Improvement | This paper is for anyone interested in understanding the underlying psychology to change and leveraging its power to impact quality improvement efforts | View resource |
| Improving health and wellbeing: A guide to using behavioural science in policy and practice (Behavioural Science Unit) | Behavioural Science Unit | A guide for practitioners and policy makers explaining how behavioural science can be used and applied in practice | View resource |
| Improving People’s Health: Applying Behavioural and Social Sciences to Improve Population Health and Wellbeing in England | Public Health England | A guide to applying behavioural and social science | View resource |
| Managing False Information in Health Emergencies: An Operational Toolkit | World Health Organisation | This toolkit provides procedures for the detection and handling of false information, using a step-wise process involving signal detection, verification, risk assessment, response design and outreach. A valuable resource to help facilitate active infodemic management, promoting accurate information dissemination and informed public health decision. | View webpage |
| MINDSPACE | The Behavioural Insights Team | This document sets out nine robust influences on behaviour, captured in a mnemonic – MINDSPACE – which can be used as a quick checklist when making policy. | View webpage |
| Motivational Interviewing Tools and Resources | Psychology Tools | Tools focused on motivational interviewing principles, four processes in motivational interviewing, and core skills in motivational interviewing | View webpage |
| NOMIS | Office for National Statistics | Nomis is a service provided by Office for National Statistics (ONS), the UK’s largest independent producer of official statistics which publishes statistics related to population, society and the labour market at national, regional and local levels. These include data from current and previous censuses. | View webpage |
| Nudges for Social Good: Practical Tips and Learning from the LGA’s Behavioural Insights Programme | Local Government Association | This report highlights some key learning identified by the Local Government Association through their behaviorual insights programme. | View resource |
| Optimising Vaccination Uptake for Covid-19 | British Psychological Society | High level health psychology insight into optimising policies and communication on communicable disease prevention with a focus on COVID-19. | View resource |
| Podcast: Behavioural Design | Aline Golzwarth and Samuel Salzer | A podcast exploring applied behavioural science and designing for behaviour change | View webpage |
| Podcast: Behavioural Economics Team | Australian Government | A podcast discussing behavioural economics and insights with a range of academics, experts and practitioners | View webpage |
| Podcast: Nudges for Social Good | Local Government Association | A podcast hearing from council officers about their pointers and practical examples on using behavioural insights techniques in various council services | View webpage |
| Podcast: Real World Behavioural Science | Stu King | A podcast exploring how behavioural and social sciences are being used in the real world to help change the public's health | View webpage |
| Re-imaging Help Guide | Nesta, Macmillan Cancer Support, British Heart Foundation, UCL Centre for Behaviour Change | An evidenced-based approach to helping people reach their goals - health and wellbeing interactions informed by behaviour change research | View resource |
| RESIST 2 Counter Disinformation Toolkit | Civil Service | This toolkit will help support governments and communicators to effectively reduce the impact of mis/disinformation through strategic communications. | View webpage |
| Responding to the Climate Crisis: Applying Behavioural Science (Behavioural Science Unit) | Behavioural Science Unit | A guide designed to support policy makers and professionals use behaviour science to create effective interventions to respond to the climate crisis | View resource |
| Ripple Effects Mapping | NIHR Applied Research Collaboration West | Online training covering what ripple effects mapping is, why it can be beneficial and how to apply the methodology in practice | View webpage |
| System Tools for Complex Health Systems | Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research | Information on why systems thinking is important, and how to develop causal loop diagrams to help identify key leverage points within a complex health system | View webpage |
| The 7 GRAPHIC Principles of Public Health Infographic Design | Dr Catherine Stones & Dr Mike Gent | A guideline for any organisation or designer who needs to design or commission public health infographics for the general public | View resource |
| The BASIC Toolkit: Tools and Ethics for Applied BehSci | Observatory for Public Sector Innovation | Methodology that looks at behaviours, analysis, strategies, interventions and change (BASIC) | View resource |
| The Behaviour Change Wheel | Susan Michie, Lou Atkins, Robert West | A guide to designing behaviour change interventions and policies, synthesising 19 behaviour change frameworks. | View webpage |
| The I-Frame and the S-Frame: How Focusing on the Individual-Level Solutions has led Behavioural Public Policy Astray | Chater, N and Loewenstein, G | This resource highlights the role of behavioural science in creating system-level change. | View webpage |
| The Implications of Behavioural Science for Effective Climate Policy | Climate Change Committee | This report reviews existing research about the effectiveness of different interventions to promote low-carbon behaviours across eight key areas. | View webpage |
| The Method Book | Monash Univeristy and Behaviour Works, Australia | Guidance on the methods and tools Behaviour Works use to change behaviour | View webpage |
| The Principles of Behaviour Change Communications | Cabinet Office | This guide explains how government communicators can use a behavioural approach to design and implement effective communications campaigns | View webpage |
| The TAP Quick Guide: A Practical Handbook for Implementing Tailoring Antimicrobial Resistance Programmes | World Health Organisation | This Tailoring Antimicrobial Resistance Programmes (TAP) Quick Guide has been developed to address the spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The TAP Quick Guide is designed to identify appropriate and feasible interventions using a behavioural insights approach. | View webpage |
| Theory and Techniques Tool | UCL Centre for Behaviour Change | An interactive resource to understand the links between behaviour change techniques (BCTs) and their mechanisms of action (MoAs). | View webpage |
| Understanding Behaviour Change | Health Education England | A collection of resources/further reading that outline why behaviour change is central to promoting health and wellbeing and addressing health inequalities. | View webpage |
| Using Behavioural Science to improve and protect health in Wales | Behavioural Science Unit | This tool is designed to capture case studies of how behavioural science has been used to optimise that impact. | View resource |
| What’s Behavioural Science Got To Do With Me? | Sheffield Hallam University | A short video introducing behavioural science, and how it's relevant to your role | View webpage |
| WISER: A Framework for Improving Government Forms | Behavioural Economics Team, Australian Government | Factors to consider when putting together organisational forms | View resource |