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Prioritizing multiple health behavior change research topics: expert opinions in behavior change science

  • Original Research
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Translational Behavioral Medicine

Abstract

Multiple health behavior change (MHBC) approaches are understudied. The purpose of this study is to provide strategic MHBC research direction. This cross-sectional study contacted participants through the Society of Behavioral Medicine email listservs and rated the importance of 24 MHBC research topics (1 = not at all important, 5 = extremely important) separately for general and underserved populations. Participants (n = 76) were 79 % female; 76 % White, 10 % Asian, 8 % African American, 5 % Hispanic, and 1 % Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander. Top MHBC research priorities were predictors of behavior change and the sustainability, long-term effects, and dissemination/translation of interventions for both populations. Recruitment and retention of participants (t(68) = 2.17, p = 0.000), multi-behavioral indices (t(68) = 3.54, p = 0.001), and measurement burden (t(67) = 5.04, p = 0.001) were important for the underserved. Results identified the same top research priorities across populations. For the underserved, research should emphasize recruitment, retention, and measurement burden.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the participants for their contributions, Dr. Angela Sy for her guidance, and the Health Behavior Change Research Workgroup for their contribution.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Office of Public Health Studies, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, 1960 East–West Road, Honolulu, HI, 96822, USA

    Katie Amato & Claudio R. Nigg

  2. College of Medicine, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea

    Eunhee Park

Authors
  1. Katie Amato
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  2. Eunhee Park
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  3. Claudio R. Nigg
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Claudio R. Nigg.

Ethics declarations

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Additional information

Implications

Practice: Specifically for underserved populations, MHBC practitioners need to creatively address and improve recruitment and retention of participants, consider and minimize measurement burden, and relatedly implement MHBC indices to track progress.

Policy: Policy makers should use these results toward devoting resources and developing policies that address participant recruitment and retention, measurement burden, and creation and standardization of multi-behavioral indices.

Research: MHBC research should focus on measuring predictors of behavior change, improving sustainability, dissemination/translation of MHBC interventions and addressing the long-term effects.

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Amato, K., Park, E. & Nigg, C.R. Prioritizing multiple health behavior change research topics: expert opinions in behavior change science. Behav. Med. Pract. Policy Res. 6, 220–227 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13142-015-0381-5

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