NSF-SSRC: An Intention-Action Framework for Improving the Impact of Public Health Initiatives

应对紧迫的公共卫生挑战，如控制传染病的爆发和管理慢性病，对社会福祉至关重要。然而，疫苗和预防性健康检查等关键保健资源的利用往往不够理想。因此，找到发展循证干预措施以促进积极健康行为的方法至关重要。要使科学研究真正指导公共卫生工作，就必须a)理解为什么利用人类行为知识的干预措施在某些情况下有效，但在其他情况下却无法再现类似的效果；b)检查何时部署特定的干预措施将最成功地改变现场的实际行为。这个跨学科的建议结合了心理学和行为经济学的见解，以了解行为干预何时以及在谁之间可以有效地改变自然环境中个人的健康行为，以及如何最佳地结合不同类型的干预。拟议的研究将利用大规模随机对照试验（rct）、实验室实验、档案数据和机器学习来检查广泛的相应健康行为（COVID-19和流感疫苗接种、癌症筛查、慢性病管理）。由此产生的知识有助于发展细致入微的卫生决策理论，并推动建立对疫苗和预防性筛查需求的科学前沿。此外，它对异质性的来源提供了有价值的见解，这可能解释了为什么有希望的科学发现在某些情况下无法复制。最终，这项研究有可能通过提供针对特定亚人群和时间背景定制干预措施的可操作见解来增强公共卫生举措的影响和范围。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Addressing pressing public health challenges, such as controlling outbreaks of infectious diseases and managing chronic conditions, is critical for societal well-being. However, uptake of crucial healthcare resources, such as vaccines and preventive health screenings, is often suboptimal. As such, finding ways to develop evidence-based interventions to promote positive health behaviors is of the utmost importance. For scientific research to truly guide public health efforts, it is essential to a) understand why interventions capitalizing on knowledge of human behavior work in some settings but fail to reproduce similar effects in others; and b) examine when deploying a given intervention will be most successful at changing actual behavior in the field. This interdisciplinary proposal combines insights from psychology and behavioral economics, to understand when and among whom behavioral interventions can effectively change individuals’ health behaviors in natural settings as well as how to optimally combine different types of interventions. The proposed research will leverage large-scale randomized controlled trials (RCTs), lab experiments, archival data, and machine learning to examine a wide range of consequential health behaviors (COVID-19 and flu vaccinations, cancer screening uptake, chronic condition management). The resulting knowledge helps develop nuanced theories of health decision making and advance the scientific frontier of building demand for vaccines and preventive screenings. Additionally, it provides valuable insights into the sources of heterogeneity that may explain why promising scientific findings fail to replicate in certain settings. Ultimately, this research has the potential to enhance the impact and reach of public health initiatives by offering actionable insights for customizing interventions to specific sub-populations and temporal contexts.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.