Examining public health practitioners' perceptions and use of behavioural sciences to design health promotion interventions.

BACKGROUND: Behavioural sciences have been shown to support the development of more effective interventions aimed at promoting healthy lifestyles. However, the operationalization of this knowledge seems to be sub-optimal in public health. Effective knowledge transfer strategies are thus needed to optimize the use of knowledge from behavioural sciences in this field. To this end, the present study examined public health practitioners' perceptions and use of theories and frameworks from behavioural sciences to design health promotion interventions. METHODS: This study adopted an exploratory qualitative design. Semi-structured interviews were conducted among 27 public health practitioners from across Canada to explore current intervention development processes, the extent to which they integrate theory and framework from behavioural sciences, and their perceptions regarding the use of this knowledge to inform intervention design. Practitioners from the public sector or non-profit/private organizations who were involved in the development of interventions aimed at promoting physical activity, healthy eating, or other healthy lifestyle habits (e.g., not smoking) were eligible to participate. RESULTS: Public health practitioners generally agreed that behaviour change is an important goal of public health interventions. On the other hand, behavioural science theories and frameworks did not appear to be fully integrated in the design of public health interventions. The main reasons were (1) a perceived lack of fit with current professional roles and tasks; (2) a greater reliance on experiential-produced knowledge rather than academic knowledge (mainly for tailoring interventions to local setting characteristics); (3) the presence of a fragmented knowledge base; (4) the belief that theories and frameworks require too much time and resources to be operationalized; and 4) the belief that using behavioural sciences might undermine partnership building. CONCLUSIONS: This study provided valuable insights that may inform knowledge transfer strategies that could be optimally designed to support the integration of behavioural sciences theories and frameworks into public health practices.

Moral licensing, identity and eco-leadership: Can public managers' support for a green recovery be undermined?

IMPACTLocal public managers are increasingly involved in policy co-design, especially in the aftermath of the Covid 19 pandemic. Municipal top management will benefit from this article because it shows how public managers' policy priorities are shaped by their own and their leaders' goals for the local administration. The authors provide a model clarifying the role of managers' environmental self-identity and municipal eco-leadership in policy decisions that involve a trade-off between economic growth and protecting the environment/climate. Previous research has not shown whether ‘economy versus environment' messages can influence public managers' policy priorities. This article is important because it provides evidence, while there is still time to use it in policy-making, to support efforts to combat issues like climate change.Alternate :The authors investigate the effects of compensatory (i.e. ‘economy versus environment') messages on public managers' attitudes towards ‘business-as-usual' plans, as opposed to green recovery plans, in the aftermath of the Covid 19 pandemic. They created a model which was tested on 90 Basque public sector managers. Exposing managers to compensatory messages increased support for green recovery plans due to an unintended moral licensing reduction effect. In addition, the authors show why it is important to acknowledge the link between public management and behavioural sciences.

MORAL SUASION AND ANTITRUST LAW

As a result of the economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Italian Competition Authority, following other countries, has increased the use of moral suasion. In the context of antitrust law, this observation allows, on the one hand, to assess the impact of alternative instruments to the classic method that is usually applied in antitrust law: legislation, violation, formal warning, sanction. On the other hand, it suggests shifting attention from rules to behaviour, based on the belief that behavioural dynamics between the logical and mandatory contents of the rules and the actual consequences are underestimated. © 2022, University of Urbino. All rights reserved.

Development and implementation experience of a learning healthcare system for facility based newborn care in low resource settings: The Neotree.

Introduction: Improving peri- and postnatal facility-based care in low-resource settings (LRS) could save over 6000 babies' lives per day. Most of the annual 2.4 million neonatal deaths and 2 million stillbirths occur in healthcare facilities in LRS and are preventable through the implementation of cost-effective, simple, evidence-based interventions. However, their implementation is challenging in healthcare systems where one in four babies admitted to neonatal units die. In high-resource settings healthcare systems strengthening is increasingly delivered via learning healthcare systems to optimise care quality, but this approach is rare in LRS. Methods: Since 2014 we have worked in Bangladesh, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and the UK to co-develop and pilot the Neotree system: an android application with accompanying data visualisation, linkage, and export. Its low-cost hardware and state-of-the-art software are used to support healthcare professionals to improve postnatal care at the bedside and to provide insights into population health trends. Here we summarise the formative conceptualisation, development, and preliminary implementation experience of the Neotree. Results: Data thus far from ~18 000 babies, 400 healthcare professionals in four hospitals (two in Zimbabwe, two in Malawi) show high acceptability, feasibility, usability, and improvements in healthcare professionals' ability to deliver newborn care. The data also highlight gaps in knowledge in newborn care and quality improvement. Implementation has been resilient and informative during external crises, for example, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We have demonstrated evidence of improvements in clinical care and use of data for Quality Improvement (QI) projects. Conclusion: Human-centred digital development of a QI system for newborn care has demonstrated the potential of a sustainable learning healthcare system to improve newborn care and outcomes in LRS. Pilot implementation evaluation is ongoing in three of the four aforementioned hospitals (two in Zimbabwe and one in Malawi) and a larger scale clinical cost effectiveness trial is planned.