Search Results (15)

Plastic recycling is an important but complicated issue. Some plastics are currently readily recyclable with existing technologies, whereas others are not. However, the general public often does not appreciate the benefits and costs associated with hard-to-recycle (e.g., multi-material) plastics, potentially causing confusion and, in some cases, backlash. While some methods of relaying information to the public have been previously studied (e.g., infographics, descriptive labeling), educational videos have not. We created an educational video on the properties and functions of single- and multi-material plastic. Participants who viewed the educational video were more knowledgeable about multi-material plastic recycling and had higher intentions to use and be satisfied with a hypothetical recycling company that intends to begin recycling multi-material plastic. Our data suggest that education interventions have the potential to inform and empower the public while protecting common values. Full article

Background: This project focuses on the relevance of using a health literacy approach to educating children about obesity prevention. The Habits of Health and Habits of Mind© model was used to write Electronic Texts for Health Literacy© to encourage actions that support obesity prevention. Guided by the Integrative Theory of Behavioral Prediction, the design template for a new genre of digital texts called Electronic Texts for Health Literacy© emerges for exploring children’s frame of mind, health literacy skills, and behavioral intentions toward obesity prevention. Methods: Online materials from selected websites were strategically reviewed for improving obesity prevention and child health literacy. The digital resources were juxtaposed with the Electronic Texts for Health Literacy©, with the latter written by and for children. Discussion: Health educators who use a constructivist pedagogy can help students to write health literacy narratives about obesity prevention, then read and talk about their multimodal compositions to further the practice and development of their health literacy skills. Children with obesogenic body frames can also gain from cowriting visual–textual–gestural health narratives with their peers or health professionals. Co-constructed narratives can help children make deeper connections about their identity, frame of mind, and social agency. Summary: Although this untested resource is available as a new genre of digital text, health educators could nudge children toward developing a stronger frame of mind and behavioral intentions toward obesity prevention when they write health literacy narratives that focus on decision making, goal setting, and communication in the context of eating nutritious foods and participating in physical activities. Full article

Background: The organic sector is often suggested as a lever with a potential for contributing to the three dimensions of sustainability: social, environmental, and economic. This study aims to investigate selected organic initiatives and organic food sectors in different locations, such as capital cities, rural areas, and the bio-district in SysOrg project consortium, in the Warsaw municipality in Poland, North Hessia region in Germany, Cilento bio-district in Italy, Kenitra province in Morocco, and Copenhagen municipality in Denmark to uncover the diverse drivers, barriers, and entry points to enable a transformation process to resilient and sustainable organic food systems. Methods: Following the methodology of the SysOrg project, this study relied on the following mixed data collection methods: quantitative (a household survey distributed among citizens) and qualitative (semi-structured interviews with organized initiatives). Results: The results demonstrate that, despite being in different stages of development in the investigated territories, the organic sector is challenged by similar barriers (e.g., undeveloped market, regulatory/budgetary constraints, and lack of knowledge and awareness) and benefits from analogous drivers (e.g., awareness and education, community support, and incentives). Conclusions: Those similarities, but also analyses of their differences and origins, allowed us to establish critical entry points for the development of a sustainable organic food system, e.g., promoting organics through a top-down approach, providing training and education, reducing information delay, popularizing negative feedback, strengthening the effectiveness of a given incentives scheme by tailored nudging mechanisms, establishing country/regional specific traditional frames, making the system more inclusive, building organic communities, and awareness-building. Full article

Studies have highlighted the importance of applying Behavioral Sciences interventions to develop equity in the prevention of chronic diseases in the public health domain. Our study aims to assess the evidence of this influence. We undertook a systematic review study using the electronic databases PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus and Cochrane, searching for work published between 2013 and 2023. The research analyzed the influence of Behavioral Sciences intervention studies on public health. This review was registered and published in PROSPERO, registration number CRD42023412377. The systematic search identified 2951 articles. The review analyzed 26 studies. The quality assessment of the articles showed an overall average of 74%, with the majority of studies being of high quality. The interventions with the best evidence for chronic diseases used framing messages, nudges and vouchers. Messages with incentives also showed satisfactory evidence. The most prevalent outcomes were related to screening tests and patient adherence to treatment. The current state of decision-making remains mainly at the patient level, with potential for further exploration of the roles of healthcare professionals and decision-makers in future research efforts. Limitations relate to the heterogeneity of the study sample, which hinders a more precise analysis of specific interventions and outcomes in chronic diseases. Full article

China’s delayed retirement policy will be prudently rolled out at the appropriate time, yet the public’s acceptance of this policy is concerning. To address this issue, our endeavor explores the impact of framing and anchoring effects on policy acceptance, aiming to mitigate the populace’s resistance to the new policy. We conducted two survey studies on the Chinese population aged 16–65. Achieved through an online survey, Study 1 (N = 225) demonstrated that information framing significantly influences the public’s acceptance of the delayed retirement policy. It was found that perceived fairness plays a mediating role between information framing and policy acceptance. Notably, the positive frame had a more pronounced effect on acceptance than its negative counterpart, with the positive presentation being perceived as more fair. Study 2 (N = 383), utilizing a combination of online and offline approaches, revealed that the anchoring effect moderates the relationship between information framing and perceived fairness. The interaction of anchoring and framing effects significantly influences perceived fairness, subsequently promoting public policy acceptance. The interplay between anchoring and framing effects significantly shapes perceived fairness, in turn bolstering the public’s receptiveness to policy. These insights offer reasonable communication strategies for the smooth advancement of new policies, further enriching the field of behavioral science. Full article

Nudging has often been suggested as a means to promote health care efficiency and effectiveness by influencing behavior without restricting choice; its usefulness, however, has not been adequately assessed. We examined the effect of an altruistically framed awareness message about the novel coronavirus on the intention to comply with individual prevention measures against infection. A total of 425 Greek postgraduate students, which were randomly assigned into a treatment group and a control group, filled out a questionnaire on compliance and future intention to comply with six preventive measures. The results indicate that the altruistic message did not manage to influence the intention to comply. Moreover, compliance was positively associated with risk perception, whereas women showed both higher compliance and risk perception than men. Vulnerability to the novel coronavirus and a positive vaccination status against it were accompanied by a greater perception of risk, while one’s personal history of COVID-19 was associated with a lower intention to comply, lower risk perception, and higher health risk preferences. We conclude that nudging interventions should be evaluated before being adopted in practice, taking into account timing, target groups, and means of communication. Full article

Arable land protection is critical to the sustainable development of agriculture in China and acceleration of the realization of the trinity protection goal of the quantity, quality, and ecology of arable land. As a new program of behavioral science to promote social development, nudge has gradually gained the favor of researchers and policy makers due to its unique advantages of small cost and substantial effect. However, current research and practical exploration of arable land protection behavior intervention based on the idea of nudging are still lacking. Implicit nudging strategies directly target the heuristic and analytic systems of arable land protection behavior of each stakeholder and possess more advantages than traditional intervention strategies. Therefore, this article designs six arable land protection behavior nudging strategies from the perspectives of cognition and motivation to realize the theoretical discussion of “generating medium-scale returns with nano-level investment”. The nudging strategies of the cognitive perspective include default options, framing effects, and descriptive norms, while those of the motivation perspective aim to stimulate home and country, and heritage and benefit motives to promote arable land protection behavior of various stakeholders. The utility of nudge to arable land protection behavior may be controversial in practice. Therefore, the implementation in China should be based on the division of farmers, the number of options should be appropriate, and the external environment of arable land protection behavior should be fully considered. Full article

Since Chinese households account for more than half of the country’s total carbon emissions, efforts focused on consumption will be key to reaching carbon reduction targets. The Individual Low-carbon Behavior Rewarding System (ILBRS) is an emerging mechanism in China that encourages the public to develop a low-carbon lifestyle and it is critical to look for various approaches to enhance the public’s willingness to participate in it. The framing effect has been widely used to study pro-environmental behavior as a low-cost nudge. We used an online questionnaire (N = 320) to investigate how framing information (loss and gain framing) influenced people’s willingness to participate in the ILBRS through the mediation of environmental risk perception. The results indicated that the public’s willingness to participate in the ILBRS under the loss frame was significantly higher than the gain frame. Furthermore, environmental risk perception played a mediating role in the proceedings. Based on our findings, the designers and promoters of ILBRS systems could employ loss-frame information to promote the public’s willingness to participate in the ILBRS and drive more people to live a low-carbon life in the process of mechanism construction, information communication, and operational promotion. Full article

Construction waste reduction (CWR) is an important approach to tackling the environmental problems resulting from increasing construction and demolition activities. Existing studies have explored various factors influencing construction stakeholders’ behavior or behavior intention regarding CWR mainly in terms of individual traits and environmental issues. With the advancement of information society, message framing has been explored as an emerging low-cost nudge approach for promoting pro-environment behavior or behavior intention in various research fields. Yet, few studies have investigated the influence of message framing on project managers’ behavior intentions regarding CWR. This study explores the relationship between project managers’ behavior intentions regarding CWR and message framing of CWR in terms of economic benefit vs. environmental benefit and small scale vs. large scale. A questionnaire experiment with 120 randomly selected project managers was conducted in Hangzhou. Two-way ANOVA and linear regression were performed to test the hypotheses. The results show that environmental benefit information has a higher impact on project managers’ behavior intentions regarding CWR than economic benefit information, while scale framing has an insignificant influence. The findings provide an alternative approach to increasing project managers’ awareness of CWR and further improve construction waste management. Full article

Caregivers have a key role in protecting children’s wellbeing, and, with appropriate skills, can prevent a multitude of negative social outcomes, particularly in challenged or humanitarian settings. Accordingly, the Strong Families programme was designed as a light touch family skills programme, with a focus of supporting caregiving during stressful situations. To evaluate the short-term impact of the Strong Families programme, we performed a time-convenience, randomized, controlled trial in Iran. A total of 292 families (63% from Iranian decent, 39% from Afghan decent, and 1% other), with children aged eight to twelve years, were recruited through ten centers in Iran and allocated to an intervention (n = 199) or waitlist/control group (n = 93). The two groups did not differ demographically at baseline. We assessed families prospectively, through three scales, PAFAS (parenting and family adjustment scales), SDQ (strengths and difficulties questionnaire), and CYRM-R (child and youth resilience measure). Caregivers in the intervention group improved (highly) statistically significantly on all but one PAFAS subscales (parental consistency, coercive parenting, positive encouragement, parental adjustment, family relationships, and parental teamwork), which was not noted in the waitlist group. On the SDQ, there were (highly) significant positive changes in scores in the intervention group on all sub-scales and the “total difficulty scale“, whereas the waitlist/control group also improved on three (prosocial, conduct problems, and hyperactivity) of the five SDQ subscales. Children originating from Afghanistan improved significantly on the overall resilience scale of the CYRM-R in the intervention group, but not in the waitlist/control group. Overall, all our stratified results of the different scales reflect an accentuated improvement in families with higher levels of problems at baseline. Our comparative results indicated a strong alignment of the strong families programme with its intended short-term impact, per its logical frame on parenting practices and family management skills, children behaviour, caregivers and children mental health, and capacity to cope with stress. We postulate that the potential nudging or diffusion of knowledge (cross-contamination between intervention and waitlist/control group) at the community level could explain improvements in the waitlist/control group on some indicators, however, further research on this is recommend. Full article

The debate about the ethical decision-making process in the healthcare context has been enriched with a theory called “nudging”, which has been defined as the framing of information that can significantly influence behaviour without restricting choice. The literature shows very limited data on the opinion and experience of palliative care healthcare professionals on the use of nudging techniques in their care setting. The aim of this study is to explore the beliefs of experienced palliative care professionals towards nudging. We performed a qualitative study using textual data collected through a focus group. It was audio-recorded, and the transcripts were subjected to a thematic analysis. It was performed within an oncological research hospital with a small and multidisciplinary group of healthcare professionals specialised in PC. Participants reported two overarching positions grounded in two main themes: (1) translating nudging in the PC setting and (2) towards a neutral space. The participants found few justifications for the use of nudging in the PC field, even if it can be very attractive and reassuring. Participants also expressed concerns about the excessive risk of developing pure paternalism. Full article

Genetic testing is increasingly part of routine clinical care. However, testing decisions may be characterized by regret as findings also implicate blood relatives. It is not known if genetic testing decisions are affected by the way information is presented (i.e., framing effects). We employed a randomized factorial design to examine framing effects on hypothetical genetic testing scenarios (common, life-threatening disease and rare, life-altering disease). Participants (n = 1012) received one of six decision frames: choice, default (n = 2; opt-in, opt-out), or enhanced choice (n = 3, based on the Theory of Planned Behavior). We compared testing decision, satisfaction, regret, and decision cognitions across decision frames and between scenarios. Participants randomized to ‘choice’ were least likely to opt for genetic testing compared with default and enhanced choice frames (78% vs. 83–91%, p < 0.05). Neither satisfaction nor regret differed across frames. Perceived autonomy (behavioral control) predicted satisfaction (B = 0.085, p < 0.001) while lack of control predicted regret (B = 0.346, p < 0.001). Opting for genetic testing did not differ between disease scenarios (p = 0.23). Results suggest framing can nudge individuals towards opting for genetic testing. These findings have important implications for individual self-determination in the genomic era. Similarities between scenarios with disparate disease trajectories point to possible modular approaches for web-based decisional support. Full article

Behavioral economics (BE) is a relatively new field within economics that incorporates insights from psychology that can be harnessed to improve economic decision making with the potential to enhance good health and well-being of individuals and societies, the third of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. While some of the psychological principles of economic decision making were described as far back as the 1700s by Adam Smith, BE emerged as a discipline in the 1970s with the groundbreaking work of psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. We describe the basic concepts of BE, heuristics (decision-making shortcuts) and their associated biases, and the BE strategies framing, incentives, and economic nudging to overcome these biases. We survey the literature to identify how BE techniques have been employed to improve individual choice (focusing on childhood obesity), health policy, and patient and healthcare provider decision making. Additionally, we discuss how these BE-based efforts to improve health-related decision making can lead to sustaining good health and well-being and identify additional health-related areas that may benefit from including principles of BE in decision making. Full article

Recently, the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) has released a new generation of reanalysis, acknowledged as ERA5, representing at the present the most plausible picture for the current climate. Although ERA5 enhancements, in some cases, its coarse spatial resolution (~31 km) could still discourage a direct use of precipitation fields. Such a gap could be faced dynamically downscaling ERA5 at convection permitting scale (resolution < 4 km). On this regard, the selection of the most appropriate nesting strategy (direct one-step against nested two-step) represents a pivotal issue for saving time and computational resources. Two questions may be raised within this context: (i) may the dynamical downscaling of ERA5 accurately represents past precipitation patterns? and (ii) at what extent may the direct nesting strategy performances be adequately for this scope? This work addresses these questions evaluating two ERA5-driven experiments at ~2.2 km grid spacing over part of the central Europe, run using the regional climate model COSMO-CLM with different nesting strategies, for the period 2007–2011. Precipitation data are analysed at different temporal and spatial scales with respect to gridded observational datasets (i.e., E-OBS and RADKLIM-RW) and existing reanalysis products (i.e., ERA5-Land and UERRA). The present work demonstrates that the one-step experiment tendentially outperforms the two-step one when there is no spectral nudging, providing results at different spatial and temporal scales in line with the other existing reanalysis products. However, the results can be highly model and event dependent as some different aspects might need to be considered (i.e., the nesting strategies) during the configuration phase of the climate experiments. For this reason, a clear and consolidated recommendation on this topic cannot be stated. Such a level of confidence could be achieved in future works by increasing the number of cities and events analysed. Nevertheless, these promising results represent a starting point for the optimal experimental configuration assessment, in the frame of future climate studies. Full article

Classifying and mapping natural systems such as wetlands using remote sensing frequently relies on data derived from regions of interest (ROIs), often acquired during field campaigns. ROIs tend to be heterogeneous in complex systems with a variety of land cover classes. However, traditional supervised image classification is predicated on pure single-class observations to train a classifier. This ultimately encourages end-users to create single-class ROIs, nudging ROIs away from field-based points or gerrymandering the ROI, which may produce ROIs unrepresentative of the landscape and potentially insert error into the classification. In this study, we explored WorldView-2 images and 228 field-based data points to define ROIs of varying heterogeneity levels in terms of class membership to classify and map 22 discrete classes in a large and complex wetland system. The goal was to include rather than avoid ROI heterogeneity and assess its impact on classification accuracy. Parametric and nonparametric classifiers were tested with ROI heterogeneity that varied from 7% to 100%. Heterogeneity was governed by ROI area, which we increased from the field-sampling frame of ~100 m² nearly 19-fold to ~2124 m². In general, overall accuracy (OA) tended downwards with increasing heterogeneity but stayed relatively high until extreme heterogeneity levels were reached. Moreover, the differences in OA were not statistically significant across several small-to-large heterogeneity levels. Per-class user’s and producer’s accuracies behaved similarly. Our findings suggest that ROI heterogeneity did not harm classification accuracy unless heterogeneity became extreme, and thus there are substantial practical advantages to accommodating heterogeneous ROIs in image classification. Rather than attempting to avoid ROI heterogeneity by gerrymandering, classification in wetland environments, as well as analyses of other complex environments, should embrace ROI heterogeneity. Full article