Behavioral economics is a multi-disciplinary approach to understanding behavior and decision making. It integrates scientific advances from psychology, neuroscience, and other behavioral fields with economic analysis and applies this knowledge to develop policies and interventions aimed at helping people make beneficial choices. This approach differs from traditional economic theory of rational decision making by adopting the perspective that people have limited or bounded rationality: They use psychological heuristics (cognitive rules of thumb) and have limited information-processing capacities when making decisions.
Strategies for promoting adaptive choices therefore focus on: (1) overcoming the use of heuristics and information processing limits; and (2) altering the decision-making environment or “choice architecture” so that the use of heuristics favors the beneficial choice while the choice frame does not impede the person’s freedom to make an alternative choice. The former set of strategies includes communication efforts to simplify information processing, such as by simplifying communication messages and forms and targeting influences such as social norms. The latter approach, which is widely referred to as “nudging”, focuses on making small changes in the decision-making environment to incline decision makers to select adaptive options; for example, automatically scheduling regular medical appointments unless the patient actively declines the automatic scheduling.
This training course offers an introduction to the fundamental use of behavioral economics to inform decision making in public health agencies. The topics covered in this course include:
No prior knowledge of economics, behavioral economics, psychology, or research methods is necessary. The course is aimed at those with an interest in understanding the applications of behavioral economics to public health agencies.
There will be four modules, which you can complete them at your convenience. To achieve the Fundamental Awareness Certificate, all modules must be viewed and the assessments (see below) must be completed.
In addition to the asynchronous presentations, you will also be provided with:
To successfully complete the course, you will be asked to complete a brief quiz after viewing each module. Each quiz will be based on the material in that module.
Time to complete the quiz: The modules are designed to be completed sequentially. Thus, we recommend that you complete the quiz for one module before starting the next module.
Number of times you can take a quiz: You can take the quiz four times. If you do not successfully complete the module after the first four attempts, please contact Dr. Cameron and she can answer any questions about the material that you might have and make arrangements for you to take the quiz again.
After viewing and completing the quizzes for all the modules, you will receive a certificate of completion.
If you are interested in enrolling, please fill out our contact form.