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What Is Really Behavioral in Behavioral Health Policy? And Does It Work?

Year: 2014

Type: article

Abstract: Across health systems, there is increasing interest in applying behavioral economics insights to health policy challenges. Policy decision makers have recently discussed a range of diverse health policy interventions that are commonly brought together under a behavioral umbrella. These include randomized controlled trials, comparison portals, information labels, financial incentives, sin taxes, and nudges. A taxonomy is proposed to classify such behavioral interventions. In the context of risky health behavior, each cluster of policies is then scrutinized under two respects: (i) What are its genuinely behavioral insights? (ii) What evidence exists on its practical effectiveness? The discussion highlights the main challenges in drawing a clear mapping between how much each policy is behaviorally inspired and its effectiveness.

Source: Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy

DOI: 10.1093/aepp/ppt036

Author: Matteo M. Galizzi

Institution: London School of Economics and Political Science

Language: English

Topic: Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics

Subfield: General Decision Sciences

Field: Decision Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: green

Funders: Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales, Economic and Social Research Council