Planning behavior change interventions tailored to health styles

Abstract

Background: Both in Hungary and in the international practice, it can be observed that interventions which aim to change health behavior do not reach their goal and do not seem to be effective in most of the cases. One possible reason can be that the behavior is tried to change mostly by a single intervention, only in one setting of a sector without considering the complexity of the task and the embedded nature of the behavior in socioeconomic and physical environment. A different approach has been offered by the results of the Healthstyle Survey implemented in 2015 by the National Institute for Health Development, since they offer an opportunity for applying interventions tailored to healthstyles identified among adults and school-age children. The aim of this paper is to present a method which may be useful to identify healthstyles matched interventions. Method:5th grade depressed, not motivated, and sensation seeking students were selected as a target group to demonstrate the method of selecting interventions tailored to healthstyles. The behavior to be change was frequent soda and junk food consumption (i.e. unhealthy eating habits). The method was based on the „Behavior Change Wheel” from the COM-B model. As a novel approach we also applied these models to identify determinants of those social actors’ behavior who probably affect the target group’s behavior. Results: By using this methodology, the authors identified the generating and sustaining factors of behavior, the matching interventions, levels, and the required functions of the different social actors in the implementation. Conclusions: Applying the methodology proposed by the authors promises more effective interventions which are complex, multilevel, and involve all the main social actors. In order to proof the efficacy of the methodology, the interventions identified by this methodology need impact assessments in the future.