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Using rigorous methods to advance behaviour change science

Nature Human Behaviour volume 2, pages 797–799 (2018)Cite this article

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 21 November 2018

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The field of behaviour change suffers from significant fragmentation and poor reporting. Here, we describe two large-scale initiatives — the Human Behaviour Change Project and Science of Behavior Change programme — that aim to introduce complementary systematic and rigorous methods to advance the science of behaviour change.

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Fig. 1: Examples of HBCP and SOBC approaches to behaviour change science.
Fig. 2: How the approaches of the HBCP and SOBC can advance behaviour change research.

Change history

  • 21 November 2018

    In the version of this Comment originally published, the Acknowledgements section was missing information about the support from the National Institutes of Health Science of Behavior Change Common Fund Program; the full text should have read ‘This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Science of Behavior Change Common Fund Program through an award administered by the National Institute on Aging (U24AG052175) and by a Wellcome Trust collaborative award (The Human Behaviour-Change Project: Building the science of behaviour change for complex intervention development, 201,524/Z/16/Z).’ This has now been corrected in all versions.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Science of Behavior Change Common Fund Program through an award administered by the National Institute on Aging (U24AG052175) and by a Wellcome Trust collaborative award (The Human Behaviour-Change Project: Building the science of behaviour change for complex intervention development, 201,524/Z/16/Z).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Behavioral Cardiovascular Health, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY, USA

    Jennifer A. Sumner, Donald Edmondson & Karina W. Davidson

  2. Department of Clinical, Educational, and Health Psychology, Centre for Behaviour Change, University College London, London, UK

    Rachel N. Carey & Susan Michie

  3. Institute of Applied Health Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK

    Marie Johnston

Authors
  1. Jennifer A. Sumner
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  2. Rachel N. Carey
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  3. Susan Michie
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  4. Marie Johnston
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  5. Donald Edmondson
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  6. Karina W. Davidson
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Contributions

J.A.S. and K.W.D. led the drafting of the paper. All authors contributed to the manuscript, commented on successive drafts, and read and approved the final version.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jennifer A. Sumner.

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Competing interests

S.M. (principal investigator), M.J. (co-investigator) and R.N.C. are members of the Human Behaviour Change Project. K.W.D. (co-principal investigator), D.E. (co-principal investigator) and J.A.S. (co-investigator) are members of the Resource and Coordinating Center for the Science of Behavior Change Research Network.

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Sumner, J.A., Carey, R.N., Michie, S. et al. Using rigorous methods to advance behaviour change science. Nat Hum Behav 2, 797–799 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0471-8

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