The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched a new self-paced online course, Behavioural Sciences for Better Health: An Interactive Course for Public Health Practitioners, available through the WHO Academy.
The course was developed to strengthen understanding and application of behavioural sciences in public health. It provides learners with practical knowledge and skills to identify the factors that influence health-related behaviours and to design more effective interventions, programmes and policies.
Human behaviours sit at the heart of many of today's most pressing health challenges, including vaccine uptake, antimicrobial resistance, physical activity, maternal and child health, and climate-related health risks, among others. While evidence-based interventions are essential to the achievement of better health outcomes, their effectiveness ultimately depends on whether people can adopt and sustain healthy behaviours.
Behavioural sciences offer systematic approaches to understanding why people behave as they do. By examining psychological, cognitive, social, cultural and environmental influences on behaviours, public health practitioners can design interventions that are more responsive to people's lived experiences and contexts, and therefore more likely to achieve meaningful outcomes.
The new e-learning course at a glance
The course introduces learners to key behavioural sciences concepts and demonstrates how behavioural insights can be integrated into public health work. Through interactive exercises, case studies and guided learning activities, participants explore practical approaches for identifying behavioural barriers and enablers and applying behavioural data and evidence to programme design, implementation and evaluation.
A central feature of the course is WHO's DDDIE framework (define, diagnose, design, implement and evaluate), which provides a structured process for generating and applying behavioural insights in public health programmes and policies. The framework supports practitioners in moving from identifying a behavioural challenge to developing, implementing and evaluating interventions informed by behavioural data and evidence.
The course consists of nine modules and a final assessment and can be completed online in approximately five hours. No prior expertise in behavioural sciences is required. Participants who successfully complete the course assessment receive a WHO Academy award of completion.
The learning programme forms part of WHO's ongoing efforts to support implementation of World Health Assembly resolution WHA76.7 on Behavioural Sciences for Better Health. It complements a growing suite of WHO tools and resources designed to strengthen behavioural sciences capacity within public health institutions, including a tool to assess the Mainstreaming behavioural sciences into institutions responsible for public health: monitoring framework and indicators, the Decision support tool for establishing a behavioural insights function, and the Behavioural insights glossary for public health practitioners.
The course is designed for a broad audience, including public health practitioners, ministry of health staff, WHO personnel at national, regional and global levels, United Nations partners, non-governmental organizations, humanitarian actors, programme managers and policy advisers. By building foundational behavioural sciences knowledge and skills across sectors and disciplines, the course aims to support more effective public health action and contribute to improved health outcomes.
For more information visit the WHO Academy website.