Behaviours are essential to health, and yet it is clear that health authorities are often not sufficiently successful in reaching their goals for population health behaviours. In response to this challenge, WHO Regional Office for Europe developed the 'Tailoring Health Programmes' (THP) guide for public health implementers, stressing the importance of adapting interventions to the needs and circumstances of those affected. The THP can be applied for any health behaviour and with any target group and proposes a four-phased approach with a set of underlying steps, accompanied by a rich collection of tools to support the process. It also suggests a framework through which insights into barriers and drivers to behaviour can be used to identify which types of interventions are more likely to effectively address or leverage these. The approach draws on an adapted version of the COM-B (Capability, Opportunity, Motivation - Behaviour) model which offers a framework that includes both individual and contextual determinants of behaviour. Through the four phases of the THP, the Theory of Change highlights the importance of evaluation and can be used to describe the key elements from problem to solution, thereby establishing a logic for how and why an intervention will be effective. Three examples of using the THP in practice are described and relate to increasing vaccination in Kazakhstan; increasing exclusive breastfeeding in Kyrgyzstan; and enhancing effective behaviours in emergency departments in the Republic of Moldova. These and many other examples illustrate that tackling the health challenges of our time requires rethinking how public health authorities understand and address health behaviours, and the THP guide offers a small step and guidance towards reaching this goal.
Habersaat Bach (Thu,) studied this question.