{"id":46717,"date":"2020-02-28T11:04:11","date_gmt":"2020-02-28T10:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=46717"},"modified":"2020-03-22T22:58:19","modified_gmt":"2020-03-22T21:58:19","slug":"behavioural-science-must-be-at-the-heart-of-the-public-health-response-to-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2020\/02\/28\/behavioural-science-must-be-at-the-heart-of-the-public-health-response-to-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Behavioural science must be at the heart of the public health response to covid-19"},"content":{"rendered":"

Human behaviour will determine how quickly covid-19 spreads and the mortality. Therefore behavioural science must be at the heart of the public health response. While responding agencies move quickly to issue advice intended to raise awareness and inform the public and professionals about what actions to take to minimise transmission, behaviour change in the face of a looming pandemic can be slow and may be too late to prevent hundreds or thousands of potentially avoidable deaths. It is important that we learn the lessons from previous incidents\u00a0<\/span>and act now to ensure behavioural science is at the centre of the planning and delivery of the public health response designed to mitigate the effects of covid-19. [1]<\/span><\/p>\n

Experience from previous incidents underlines the importance of ensuring that protective behaviours are delineated and that behavioural advice to the public and health professionals is acted upon. The surge of unaffected patients into medical facilities during the SARS outbreak<\/span> and the low uptake of the H1N1 vaccine during the 2009\/10 pandemic<\/span> should serve as reminders of this. [2,3] Equally, emergencies such as infectious disease outbreaks can result in spontaneous pro-social and adaptive behaviours in affected populations, which need to be understood and guided. A new pandemic will challenge the capacity of any system; the success of our mitigation efforts will inevitably rely on informal networks of family and community support and care.<\/span><\/p>\n

For the public, we need to provide actionable information for self-protection and clear guidance for treatment seeking<\/span>. [4] There is a science behind how to make information “actionable.” The first step is to identify precisely what behaviours are involved\u2014who needs to do what, when, where. The second is to ensure that people have the capability, opportunity, and motivation, to enact the desired behaviours; if any one of these are missing, the behaviour will not occur. [5]<\/span><\/p>\n

A review of advice from the World Health Organisation<\/span>, Centres for Disease Control<\/span> and Public Health England<\/span>\u00a0suggests 13 behaviours important to reducing transmission. (Table 1) [6, 7, 8] The relative importance of each behaviour may differ from country to country depending on local context. Each of these behaviours require sub-behaviours that may differ according to situation. Each behaviour involves different challenges in terms of the motivation, capability and opportunity needed to enact them. We must be considering now how to meet these challenges.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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As there is much we do not know about transmission of covid-19, continued research is important. The behavioural science research agenda should include study of:<\/span><\/p>\n