Nur and Co-Authors Publish Article on Behavior Adoption Approaches During Public Health Emergencies

Posted: 2/22/2021 (CSDE Research)

CSDE Trainee Aasli Nur and co-authors recently published a practice article in BMJ Global Health titled “Behavior Adoption Approaches During Public Health Emergencies: Implications for the COVID 19 Pandemic and Beyond.” The authors  draw from the emerging evidence on behavior adoption during diverse public health emergencies to develop a framework that contextualizes behavior adoption vis-à-vis a combination of top-down, intermediary and bottom-up approaches. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study, they operationalize the contextual framework to demonstrate how these three approaches differ in terms of their implementation, underlying drivers of action, enforcement, reach and uptake. They illustrate how blended strategies that include all three approaches can help accelerate and sustain protective behaviors that will remain important even when safe and effective vaccines become more widely available. They conclude that as the world grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic and prepares to respond to (re)emerging public health threats, a contextual framework can inform the design, implementation, tracking and evaluation of comprehensive public health and social measures during health emergencies. To read the article, click here.