Behavioural Incentive Design for Health Policy: Steering for Health

Behavioural economics has become a popular way of tackling a broad range of issues in public policy. By presenting a more descriptive and possibly accurate representation of human behaviour than traditional economics, Behavioural Incentive Design for Health Policy tries to make sense of decisions that follow a wider conception of welfare, influenced by social norms and narratives, pro-social motivations and choice architectures which were generally neglected by standard economics. The authors show how this model can be applied to tackle a wide range of issues in public health, including smoking, the obesity crisis, exercise uptake, alcoholism, preventive screenings and attitudes towards vaccinations. It shows not only how behavioural economics allows us to better understand such challenges, but also how it can design effective incentives for addressing them. This book is an extensive reassessment of the interaction between behavioural incentives and health.

Dr Joan Costa-Font is Professor of Health Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) where he lead the Ageing and Health Incentives Lab (AHIL). He is the co-director of the MSc International Health Policy, and the bulk of his teaching is on behavioural health economics. He is book review editor of Behavioural Public Policy journal, been Harkness Fellow at Harvard University, policy evaluation scholar and Sciences Po and has held visiting research positions at Oxford University, Boston College and UCL.

Dr Tony Hockley is a Senior Visiting Fellow in the Department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), Director of the Policy Analysis Centre Ltd, and Editor of the Behavioural Public Policy blog for Cambridge University Press. Tony has extensive experience in public policy leadership in government, industry, and consulting practice.

Dr Caroline Rudisill is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Promotion, Education and Behavior at the Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina. She is a health economist and conducts research on the economics of health behaviors and decision-making about health-related risks.