Goal: To develop interventions that can be implemented at scale to target the four sets of behaviours that contribute most to premature, preventable death worldwide, years lived in poor health and health inequalities: excessive consumption of food and alcohol, smoking and low physical activity.
Achievements: For interventions that target whole populations rather than specific individuals (eg, changing cues in physical environments that shape our behaviour often without our awareness, also known as nudging), we have developed a classification of interventions for changing proximal physical environments to change behaviour, such as in relation to food portion size. For interventions that target specific individuals (eg, using digital, automated text messaging and smartphone applications), we have developed and are evaluating an intervention for smoking cessation using tailored text messaging (iQuit in Practice) and a version for pregnant smokers (MiQuit).
Future plans: We are planning a series of integrated field and laboratory studies to estimate the effect sizes of promising interventions to reduce food, alcohol and tobacco consumption. These studies will be conducted in supermarkets, bars and cafeterias; the interventions will be optimised through laboratory studies determining mechanisms.