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Research Groups
Changing Behaviour and Implementing Best Practice
This group addresses two problems which affect population health and well-being:
- Behavioural risk factors such as smoking, physical inactivity, poor diet and excessive alcohol consumption. Together these contribute to around one-third of the total burden of disease in the UK, and they have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic response.
- The failure to implement evidence-based interventions into (clinical) practice and policy. Only half of evidence-based interventions and practices become routinely implemented into healthcare settings.
Addressing these problems requires behaviour change in the public, patients, professionals and organisations in the NHS, public health and social care.
Our group uses evidence and methods from behavioural science and implementation science to support behaviour change and the routine delivery of evidence-based practices. This includes the selection of evidence-based behaviour change and implementation strategies, based on an in-depth understanding of key influences on behaviours which cause the problem.
In December 2021, Prof Wendy Hardeman and her team were awarded a grant from UEAHSCP's first-ever ‘Power of Collaborative Research’ Strategic Funding round. Designed to boost collaboration across local health and social care research and innovation, the scheme awarded funds to projects that will undertake joint research that benefits our region’s healthcare services.
The grant will go towards a project, CHarMINg, to co-produce interventions supporting multiple behaviour changes in socially deprived communities. It focuses on the ‘big four’ behaviours: unhealthy diets, smoking, physical inactivity, and excessive alcohol consumption. Service users, practitioners, researchers and policymakers will identify best practices and reach a consensus on promising interventions. It is hoped that healthcare practitioners and others who support multiple behaviour changes are better able to reach those who can benefit the most, use evidence-based approaches and empower people to make positive changes for their health and well-being.
- Development and evaluation of scalable behaviour change interventions, in particular digital interventions (apps, SMS) and very brief opportunistic consultations. Key target behaviours include the promotion of physical activity, smoking cessation and healthy eating, and reduction of harmful drinking.
- Development and evaluation of implementation strategies, especially digital technology, to promote the use of evidence-based practices by professionals and organisations in the NHS, public health and social care.
- Enabling the NHS, public health and social care workforce and anyone involved in supporting behaviour change to deliver or signpost people to evidence-based behaviour change support, through training and evidence-based resources.
Help in COVID Study
Understanding help-seeking for acute or new potentially serious symptoms during COVID-19
Background
During the national COVID-19 lockdowns in England, people have been asked to stay at home, with rapid changes in healthcare access. A&E departments and GP surgeries have seen significantly fewer people, leading to concerns that people are not seeking help when needed. Late diagnoses of serious conditions, like heart attacks, may harm people’s health and well-being. Nationally, in addition to deaths from COVID-19, there are also extra deaths not due to COVID-19.
The study
The choices people make about seeking help for new, urgent health problems during COVID-19 are not easy. We need a good understanding of this so we can better support people who seek needed help during a pandemic. We are inviting adults who have sought help for a new, serious symptom or were diagnosed with a serious condition during COVID-19 to take part in the study. People will be invited to have telephone/online (e.g. Zoom) conversations with a researcher to discuss their experiences. People can include a carer in the conversation if they wish.
Our results will contribute to improving healthcare in pandemics and may contribute to developing a bigger study.
This study was run by a team of researchers at UEA and is funded by UEAHSCP.
Results
The findings have now been published in the British Journal of Health Psychology and are available to read for free (open access), by clicking on the link below.
The CHarMINg project co-produced interventions supporting multiple behaviour change within socially deprived communities.
Led by Prof Wendy Hardeman, the project was focused on the ‘big four’ behaviours: unhealthy diets, smoking, physical inactivity, and excessive alcohol consumption.
Wendy and her team worked closely with people from local communities to hear, in their own words, about their own experiences and how best to approach multiple behaviour change.
The outputs from the study are now available, please feel free to share these briefing documents with others:
Organisations involved in this group
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