InterMob: a 24-month randomised controlled trial comparing the effectiveness of an intervention including behavioural change techniques and free transport versus an intervention including air pollution awareness-raising on car use reduction among regular car users living in Grenoble, France

A pilot randomised controlled trial comparing the effectiveness of the MaTerre180' participatory tool including a serious game versus an intervention including carbon footprint awareness-raising on behaviours among academia members in France

BACKGROUND

Activities embedded in academic culture (international conferences, field missions) are an important source of greenhouse gas emissions. For this reason, collective efforts are still needed to lower the carbon footprint of Academia. Serious games are often used to promote ecological transition. Nevertheless, most evaluations of their effects focus on changes in knowledge and not on behaviour. The main objectives of this study are to 1) Evaluate the feasibility of a control and an experimental behaviour change intervention and, 2) Evaluate the fidelity (the extent to which the implementation of the study corresponds to the original design) of both interventions.

METHODS

People employed by a French research organisation (N = 30) will be randomised to one of the two arms. The experimental arm consists in a 1-hour group discussion for raising awareness about climate change, carrying out a carbon footprint assessment and participating to a serious game called "Ma terre en 180 minutes." The control arm consists of the same intervention (1h discussion + carbon footprint assessment) but without participating to the serious game. On two occasions over one month, participants will be asked to fill in online surveys about their behaviours, psychological constructs related to behaviour change, sociodemographic and institutional information. For every session of intervention, the facilitators will assess task completion, perceived complexity of the tasks and the perceived responsiveness of participants. Descriptive statistics will be done to analyse percentages and averages of the different outcomes.

DISCUSSION

Ma-terre EVAL pilot study is a 1-month and a half pilot randomised controlled trial aiming to evaluate the feasibility and the fidelity of a 24-month randomised controlled trial. This study will provide more information on the levers and obstacles to reducing the carbon footprint among Academia members, so that they can be targeted through behaviour change interventions or institutional policies.

Health psychology and climate change: time to address humanity's most existential crisis

Climate change is an ongoing and escalating health emergency. It threatens the health and wellbeing of billions of people, through extreme weather events, displacement, food insecurity, pathogenic diseases, societal destabilisation, and armed conflict. Climate change dwarfs all other challenges studied by health psychologists. The greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change disproportionately originate from the actions of wealthy populations in the Global North and are tied to excessive energy use and overconsumption driven by the pursuit of economic growth. Addressing this crisis requires significant societal transformations and individual behaviour change. Most of these changes will benefit not only the stability of the climate but will yield significant public health co-benefits. Because of their unique expertise and skills, health psychologists are urgently needed in crafting climate change mitigation responses. We propose specific ways in which health psychologists at all career stages can contribute, within the spheres of research, teaching, and policy making, and within organisations and as private citizens. As health psychologists, we cannot sit back and leave climate change to climate scientists. Climate change is a health emergency that results from human behaviour; hence it is in our power and responsibility to address it.

Beyond Individual Cognitions: Time for Intervention Science to Focus on Health Context and Audience

Intervention science faces a hazardous paradox: on the one hand, vulnerable populations (eg, patients, people from low socioeconomic background, older adults) are those for whom adoption of healthy behaviors is most urgent; on the other hand, behavior change models are less predictive, and interventions less successful, in these populations. This commentary presents 4 reasons that may explain this issue: (1) research mostly focuses on what causes behavior and how to change it, at the expense of investigating among whom and under what conditions models are valid; (2) models put an undue emphasis on individual cognitions; (3) most studies are not conducted on vulnerable populations; and (4) most researchers are from high-income countries. Several avenues are proposed to address this issue: (1) providing a central place to the context and audience in health behavior change modelization, through collaborations with researchers from other disciplines and countries, and with members of the targeted audience; (2) better reporting samples' sociodemographic characteristics and increasing samples' diversity; and (3) using more rigorous and innovative designs (eg, powered randomized controlled trials, N-of-1 trials, intensive longitudinal studies). In conclusion, it becomes urgent to change the way we do research: the social utility and credibility of intervention science depend on it.