We conducted a systematic search for an overview of reviews of scholarly evidence on scale up, and 11 practice interviews with behaviour science researchers and practitioners to identify the factors and activities that influence the scale up of behaviour change interventions, learn about scale up, its challenges, and useful frameworks, identify which behaviour to target with an intervention, assess the feasibility of different intervention ideas, and select a scalable behaviour change…
Country: Australia
The problem
Missed appointments are a significant cost to the health care system, and patients who do not attend appointments miss out on valuable care.
What we did
We partnered with the Department of Health and Human Services and several health services to improve patient communications as part of a new Communications Toolkit for health services.
To understand what works, we designed a range of behaviourally-informed SMS reminders and letters to reduce the number of patients who do not attend…
emand within the Child Protection system has grown significantly over the last decade.
The education sector is a particularly important stakeholder. Teachers and other school staff interact with children regularly and are often the first to notice if a child is at risk or needs support.
This project sought to better understand the decision making process of professionals from the education sector, Child Protection Intake and Child FIRST lead agencies for identification of whether a child is…
BI Project
Electricity Information to Fit the Bill: Redesigning electricity bills to support consumer…
Electricity bills are a key way to inform people about their plan and usage, but bills can be confusing and are not really useful to help people navigate the electricity market. BETA and the Department of the Environment and Energy ran a trial to test the impact of bill design on people’s confidence in their ability to look for a better offer and intention to do so. We drew on behavioural insights to design and test six electricity bills. We focussed on simplifying bill design to draw…
The Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP) is a government-funded program for all permanent visa holders and some temporary visa holders who have less than a vocational level of English. Not all people who are eligible for the AMEP participate in it. The Department of Home Affairs commissioned BETA to evaluate the effectiveness of communication in participants’ home languages on increasing participation in the AMEP.
Trial 1: We will send text messages to speakers of Mandarin, Cantonese,…
Behavioural Additionality & Spillovers in the R&DTI
Background
This project aimed to understand the behavioural additionality effects of the R&DTI via a series of user interviews with companies currently engaged in R&D (including those participating and not participating in the R&DTI). Behavioural additionality goes beyond the traditional view of R&D additionality, which typically focuses on quantitative increases in inputs and outputs. Instead, behavioural additionality considers wider,…
BETA partnered with the Department of Social Services to determine the effect of behaviourally-informed activity statements on gambling behaviour in a simulated game. We tested two activity statement prototypes and found participants who saw the activity statements bet less than those who did not. Showing participants clear and easy-to-understand information about their gambling activities empowered them to make informed decisions about how much to bet. This project was conducted under Measure 7…
The Australian Government has a range of programs available to assist those experiencing drought. But despite help being available, many do not reach out. The Behavioural Economics Team of the Australian Government (BETA) worked with the Joint Agency Drought Taskforce to research the barriers preventing people from seeking help.
We sought to:
• understand the most effective forms of communication about available forms of assistance, and incentives to take up assistance; and
• understand the…
BI Project
Nudge vs Superbugs: a behavioural economics trial to reduce the overprescribing of antibiotics
BETA and the Department of Health ran a trial to test the impact of personalised letters from Australia's Chief Medical Officer to high-prescribing GPs prompting them to consider reducing antibiotic prescribing where appropriate and safe.