Behavioural sciences for better health: An interactive course for public health practitioners

WHO launches new e-learning course on behavioural sciences for better health

The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched a new self-paced online course, Behavioural Sciences for Better Health: An Interactive Course for Public Health Practitioners, available through the WHO Academy.

The course was developed to strengthen understanding and application of behavioural sciences in public health. It provides learners with practical knowledge and skills to identify the factors that influence health-related behaviours and to design more effective interventions, programmes and policies.

Human behaviours sit at the heart of many of today’s most pressing health challenges, including vaccine uptake, antimicrobial resistance, physical activity, maternal and child health, and climate-related health risks, among others. While evidence-based interventions are essential to the achievement of better health outcomes, their effectiveness ultimately depends on whether people can adopt and sustain healthy behaviours.

Behavioural sciences offer systematic approaches to understanding why people behave as they do. By examining psychological, cognitive, social, cultural and environmental influences on behaviours, public health practitioners can design interventions that are more responsive to people’s lived experiences and contexts, and therefore more likely to achieve meaningful outcomes.

The new e-learning course at a glance

The course introduces learners to key behavioural sciences concepts and demonstrates how behavioural insights can be integrated into public health work. Through interactive exercises, case studies and guided learning activities, participants explore practical approaches for identifying behavioural barriers and enablers and applying behavioural data and evidence to programme design, implementation and evaluation.

A central feature of the course is WHO’s DDDIE framework (define, diagnose, design, implement and evaluate), which provides a structured process for generating and applying behavioural insights in public health programmes and policies. The framework supports practitioners in moving from identifying a behavioural challenge to developing, implementing and evaluating interventions informed by behavioural data and evidence.

The course consists of nine modules and a final assessment and can be completed online in approximately five hours. No prior expertise in behavioural sciences is required. Participants who successfully complete the course assessment receive a WHO Academy award of completion.

The learning programme forms part of WHO’s ongoing efforts to support implementation of World Health Assembly resolution WHA76.7 on Behavioural Sciences for Better Health. It complements a growing suite of WHO tools and resources designed to strengthen behavioural sciences capacity within public health institutions, including a tool to assess the Mainstreaming behavioural sciences into institutions responsible for public health: monitoring framework and indicators, the Decision support tool for establishing a behavioural insights function, and the Behavioural insights glossary for public health practitioners.

The course is designed for a broad audience, including public health practitioners, ministry of health staff, WHO personnel at national, regional and global levels, United Nations partners, non-governmental organizations, humanitarian actors, programme managers and policy advisers. By building foundational behavioural sciences knowledge and skills across sectors and disciplines, the course aims to support more effective public health action and contribute to improved health outcomes.

For more information visit the WHO Academy website.

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This course aims to equip people involved in planning, implementing or supporting public health interventions with an introductory understanding of behavioural sciences and their application to public health.

What will you learn

Explain the advantages of using a behavioural sciences approach when developing public health interventions, programmes or policies.

Apply insights on the influences of human behaviours to a variety of contexts, needs and topics.

Follow a systematic and data-driven process to effectively apply behavioural insights to plan, develop, implement and evaluate interventions aimed at enabling behaviours.

Assess which data collection methods and sources are most suitable to obtain behavioural insights that can be integrated in public health work.

Who this course is for

• Academics, professors or researchers
• Allied health professionals (e.g., physiotherapists, occupational therapists)
• Community health workers
• Dentists
• Dieticians or nutritionists
• Directors or managers
• Environmental or occupational health workers
• Epidemiologists
• Health educators
• Medical doctors
• Midwives
• Non-government organization workers (NGOs)
• Nurses
• Pharmacists or pharmaceutical technicians
• Policy-makers (e.g., Members of Parliament, Ministers)
• Psychologists
• Public health practitioners
• Social workers
• WHO staff

About this Course

Number of modules: 9

Approximate course duration: 4 to 5 hours

Learning modality: self-paced

Early-release course You are enrolling in an early-release version of this course. We encourage you to provide feedback on your learning experience. We will use your feedback to adapt and improve the course and the WHO Academy online learning platform.

Additional learning resources are available to download, such as peer review articles, behavioural sciences tools and frameworks, WHO guidelines and policy briefs.

Assessment & Awards

You will receive a WHO Academy Award of Completion upon completing all learning activities in all the modules in this course. The award will be saved in your “My Learning / Achievements” space and can be downloaded and shared.

Other information

Produced by: The content of this course was developed by Behavioural Insights Unit (BIU) at WHO headquarters with contributions from the members of the WHO Behavioural Insights Technical Advisory Group (TAG). We also thank the Competence Centre on Behavioural Insights, at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), for their technical inputs into the course content.

Conflict of interest: All experts involved in the peer review of the course declared no conflicts of interest. WHO found no actual or perceived conflicts related to this course.