Behavioral Design to Inform Social and Behavior Change for Nutrition Online Course

Behavioral Design to Inform Social and Behavior Change for Nutrition [Course]

Behavioral science offers empirical insights into how people interact with their environment and each other under different conditions. It includes research from various fields, such as cognitive and social psychology, marketing, neuroscience, and behavioral economics, that provide insight into the complexity of human behavior. Behavioral design leverages insights from behavioral science to develop and test innovative solutions that, rather than trying to change people, seek to reshape their context to positively influence their behavior. It offers a powerful tool to address some of the stickiest challenges you may encounter in health and nutrition programs, services, and policies.

This online course, developed by Breakthrough ACTION and USAID Advancing Nutrition, offers a practical, hands-on introduction to behavioral science, behavioral design, and how these approaches can be applied to nutrition challenges. It uses a real-life case example to illustrate the behavioral design process in action and guides participants to consider whether and how the solutions in the case example can be adapted to their own contexts. This case example draws from research and design work conducted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to support families to follow nutrition guidelines for feeding their young children during and after illness.