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.
| Title | Author | Description | Resources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Achieving Behaviour Change: A Guide for National Government | Public Health England | A guide to applying behavioural science for national governments | 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 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 Method Book | Monash Univeristy and Behaviour Works, Australia | Guidance on the methods and tools Behaviour Works use to change behaviour | View webpage |