Dr Matteo M Galizzi (CON 4.06)

Elisabeth Costa

This course is available on the Executive MSc in Behavioural Science. This course is not available as an outside option.

The course aims to introduce to students the main principles, insights and state-of-the-art applications of behavioural science to health policy and practice, and to regulation.

The course is designed to enhance students’ abilities to apply rigorously and critically behavioural science tools to concrete contemporary challenges in the areas of health and regulation.

It covers principles of behavioural science for health and regulation; heterogeneity and behavioural economics; behavioural health economics and behavioural public policy; behavioural experiments in health (field, lab, lab-field, online, mobile); behavioural data linking; measures of behavioural science for health and regulation: risk, time, and social preferences; heterogeneous attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions; risk perception and risk communication; behavioural insights for information policies; information overload and information avoidance; financial and non-financial incentives; behaviourally supercharged incentives; nudging behavioural change in health; beyond nudging: ‘nudge+’ and ‘boosts’; behavioural spillovers; behavioural insights for taxation on risky health behaviours; behavioural insights for health practice, management, and policy challenges; behavioural public health; regulation, policy-making, and the role of the ‘behavioural regulator’; behavioural biases in regulated markets and behavioural market failures; health regulation, the UK health regulatory landscape; digital health and regulating decisions made in online environments; boosting prevention through personalised data and interventions; mental health, behavioural science, and AI; de-shrouding the food system; shaping markets for better health outcomes. Case studies include: behavioural insights for, and applications to, health-related behaviours such as diet and nutrition, physical exercise, alcohol abuse, tobacco and drug use, e-cigarettes, medication, screening, infectious diseases, prevention, prophylaxis, vaccination, anti-microbic resistance, early health, mental health; COVID-19 pandemic responses; medical decision-making; doctor-patient interaction and shared decision-making; behavioural insights for blood and organ donations; sugar tax; COVID-19 apps.

The course is delivered through a combination of lectures and seminars totalling a minimum of 20 hours in the third teaching session (April).

Students will be expected to produce 1 presentation during the teaching session and 1 other piece of coursework after the teaching session.

• Charness G, Gneezy U (2009) Incentives to exercise. Econometrica, 77(3), 909-931.
• Costa-Font J, Galizzi MM (2024). Behavioural Economics and Policy for Pandemics: Behavioural Insights from Responses to COVID-19. Cambridge University Press.
• Costa E, King K, Dutta R, Algate F (2016). Applying behavioural insights to regulated markets.
• Costa E, Halpern D (2019). The behavioural science of online harm and manipulation, and what to do about it.
• Dai, H., Saccardo, S., Han, M. A., Roh, L., Raja, N., Vangala, S., Modi, H., Pandya, S., Sloyan, M., & Croymans, D. M. (2021). Behavioral Nudges Increase COVID-19 Vaccinations. Nature, 597, 404-409. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03843-2
• Dolan P, Galizzi MM (2015) Like ripples on a pond: behavioural spillovers and their consequences for research and policy. Journal of Economic Psychology, 47, 1-16.
• Galizzi MM (2014). What is really behavioural in behavioural health policy? And, does it work? Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, 36(1), 25-60.
• Galizzi MM, Wiesen D (2017). Behavioural experiments in health: An introduction. Health economics, 26(S3), 3-5.
• Galizzi MM, Wiesen D (2018). Behavioural Experiments in Health Economics. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Economics and Finance. Oxford University Press.
• Halpern D, Costa E, Makinson L, Broughton N (2024). The shrouded economy.
• Hanoch Y, Barnes AJ, Rice T (2017). Behavioral Economics and Healthy Behaviors. Routledge.
• Lunn PD, Belton CA, Lavin C, McGowan FP, Timmons S, & Robertson DA (2020). Using Behavioral Science to help fight the Coronavirus. Journal of Behavioral Public Administration, 3(1).
• Roberto CA, Kawachi I (2016). Behavioral Economics and Public Health. Oxford University Press.
• Ruggeri K., Haslam A., Capraro V., Boggio, P., Ellemers, N., Cichoka, A., Douglas, K., Rand, D., van der Linden, S., Cikara, M., Finkel, E., Druckman, J,N., Wohl, M., Petty, R., Tucker, J.A., Shariff, A., Gelfand, M., Packer, D., Jetten, J., Van Lange, P., Pennycook, G., Peters, E., Baicker, K., Crum, A., Weeden, K., Napper, L., Tabri, N., Zaki, J., Skitka, L., Kitayama, S., Mobbs, D., Sunstein, C., Galizzi, M.M., Milkman, K.L., Petrovic, M., van Bavel, J., Willer R., et al. (2022). A synthesis of evidence for policy from behavioural science during COVID-19. Nature, 625, 134-147. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06840-9
• Schwartz JA, Chapman GB (1999). Are more options always better? The attraction effect in physicians' decisions about medications. Medical Decision Making, 19, 315-323.
• Steinert, J., Sternberg, H., Prince, H., Fasolo, B., Galizzi, M.M., Buthe, T., & Veltri, G.A. (2022). COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in Eight European Countries: Prevalence, Determinants and Heterogeneity. Science Advances. 2022, 8(17). doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abm9825
• Van Bavel JJ, Baicker K, Boggio PS, Capraro V, Cichocka A, Cikara M, Crockett MJ, Crum AJ, Douglas KM, Druckman JN, Drury J, Dube O, Ellemers N, Finkel EJ, Fowler JH, Gelfand M, Han S, Halsam SA, Jetten J, … & Willer R (2020). Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response. Nature Human Behaviour, 1-12.
• Volpp K, Loewenstein G et al. (2008). Financial incentive-based approaches to weight loss. Journal of the American Medical Association, 300, 2631-2637.

Essay (100%, 3000 words).