Behavioral Economics and Public Health

Edited by Christina A. Roberto and Ichiro Kawachi

The first book to apply behavioral economics to public health and health behavior change
Combines theory and evidence from behavioral economics to detail practical interventions in health behavior and behavioral interventions
Interdisciplinary contributions from behavioral economics, psychology, medicine, and public health
An ideal core text for undergraduate and graduate courses

Behavioral Economics and Public Health

Edited by Christina A. Roberto and Ichiro Kawachi

Description

Behavioral economics has potential to offer novel solutions to some of today's most pressing public health problems: How do we persuade people to eat healthy and lose weight? How can health professionals communicate health risks in a way that is heeded? How can food labeling be modified to inform healthy food choices?

Behavioral Economics and Public Health is the first book to apply the groundbreaking insights of behavioral economics to the persisting problems of health behaviors and behavior change. In addition to providing a primer on the behavioral economics principles that are most relevant to public health, this book offers details on how these principles can be employed to mitigating the world's greatest health threats, including obesity, smoking, risky sexual behavior, and excessive drinking. With contributions from an international team of scholars from psychology, economics, marketing, public health, and medicine, this book is a trailblazing new approach to the most difficult and important problems of our time.

Behavioral Economics and Public Health

Edited by Christina A. Roberto and Ichiro Kawachi

Chapter 1: An Introduction to Behavioral Economics and Public Health
Christina A. Roberto and Ichiro Kawachi
Chapter 2: Intertemporal Choices for Health
Justin S. White and William H. Dow
Chapter 3: Maintenance of Healthy Behaviors: Forming and Changing Habits
Dennis Rünger and Wendy Wood
Chapter 4: Emotions and Health Decision-Making: Extending the Appraisal Tendency Framework to Improve Health and Health Care
Rebecca Ferrer, William Klein, Jennifer Lerner, Valerie Reyna, and Dacher Keltner
Chapter 5: Social Norms, Beliefs, and Health
Brent McFerran
Chapter 6: Communicating for action: the importance of memorability and actionability
Jason Riis and Rebecca K. Ratner
Chapter 7:Nudging Individuals Toward Healthier Food Choices with the 4Ps Framework for Behavior Change
Zoë Chance, Ravi Dhar, Michelle Hatzis, and Kim Huskey
Chapter 8: Incentivizing Health Behaviors
_{Kristina Lewis and Jason Block}
Chapter 9: Slim By Design: Moving from Can't to CAN
Brian Wansink
Chapter 10: Applying Behavioural Economics in a Health Policy Context: Dispatches from the front lines
Michael Sanders and Michael Hallsworth
Chapter 11: From Choice Architecture to Policy Infrastructure: Multi-Level Theory and the Political Economy of Health Behaviors
Frederick J. Zimmerman

Behavioral Economics and Public Health

Edited by Christina A. Roberto and Ichiro Kawachi

Author Information

Edited by Christina A. Roberto, Assistant Professor of Social & Behavioral Sciences and Nutrition, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, and Edited by Ichiro Kawachi, John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Social Epidemiology and Chair of the Department of Social & Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health

Christina A. Roberto, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Social & Behavioral Sciences and Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She is a psychologist and epidemiologist whose research aims to identify, understand, and alter the environmental and social forces that promote unhealthy eating behaviors linked to obesity and eating disorders. In her work, she draws upon the fields of psychology, behavioral economics, marketing, and public health to answer research questions that can provide policymakers and institutions with science-based guidance.

Ichiro Kawachi, MD, PhD, is the John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Social Epidemiology and Chair of the Department of Social & Behavioral Sciences at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where he has taught since 1992. He has previously coedited Social Epidemiology, Neighborhoods and Health, Globalization and Health, and the Oxford Handbook of Public Health Practice, all published by Oxford University Press. Kawachi lectures about social epidemiology through the Harvard University Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platform, edX. His course, "Health and Society" (PHx 201), is a version of the class that he has taught for twenty years at Harvard. In 2013-1014, 35,000 students from all over the world were enrolled in the MOOC course.

Contributors:

Jason Block
Harvard Medical School

Zoë Chance
Yale University

Ravi Dhar
Yale University

William H. Dow
University of California, Berkeley

Rebecca Ferrer
National Cancer Institute

Michael Hallsworth
Imperial College London

Michelle Hatzis
Google

Kim Huskey
Yale University

Ichiro Kawachi
Harvard University

Dacher Keltner
University of California Berkeley

William Klein
National Cancer Institute

Jennifer Lerner
Harvard University

Kristina Lewis
Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research

Brent McFerran
Simon Fraser University

Rebecca K. Ratner
University of Maryland

Valerie Reyna
Cornell University

Jason Riis
University of Pennsylvania

Christina A. Roberto
Harvard University

Dennis Rünger
University of Southern California

Michael Sanders
Harvard University

Brian Wansink
Cornell University

Justin S. White
Stanford University

Wendy Wood
Duke University

Frederick J. Zimmerman
University of Californa, Los Angeles

Behavioral Economics and Public Health

Edited by Christina A. Roberto and Ichiro Kawachi

Reviews and Awards

"Roberto and Kawachi have put together a collection of insights that health policy professionals will need to understand to create the largest impacts moving forward." -Max H. Bazerman, Straus Professor and Co-Director, Center for Public Leadership, Harvard University; Author, THE POWER OF NOTICING "

"Want to promote healthy behavior? Make sure you understand the ideas in this important book." -Peter A Ubel, Madge and Dennis T. McLawhorn University Professor, Schools of Business, Public Policy, and Medicine, Duke University "