Faculty Directors Why aren`t we in better health?

Intergenerational lifestyle
change program
Faculty Directors
Obesity and chronic condition management
continue to be growing public health concerns.
Intergenerational interventions that empower both
parents and children to make healthier choices together
can be powerful. The Envolve Center’s Intergenerational
Lifestyle Intervention team will conduct research on
breaking the cycle of intergenerational obesity and
diabetes risk through evidence-based interventions that
explore behavior-centered components such as peer
coaching, home visiting programs, incentives, automatic
program enrollment and more. Among other efforts, the
research team will conduct a 3-year trial of an obesityprevention program within the Envolve family
of companies’ services and measure its reach
and effectiveness. Debra Haire-Joshu, PhD, a national
leader in obesity prevention research and policy who
advised on Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign, will
lead this research.
Michal Grinstein-Weiss, PhD, MA, MSW,
OUR RESEARCH ON INTERGENERATIONAL
INTERVENTIONS WILL ADDRESS QUESTIONS LIKE...
Debra Haire-Joshu, PhD, MS, MSED,
› Does recruiting
people with
automatic enrollment
improve program
participation?
› How do incentives
impact participation
in a program?
› Do peer coaches,
home visitations, or
individualized contact
enhance lifestyle
change interventions?
is a professor at the Brown School at Washington
University in St. Louis. She is the founding director
of the Envolve Center and the associate director of
the Center for Social Development. She also serves
as a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings
Institution and previously held an associate
professor position in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
where she founded the Asset-Building Research Group.
Dan Ariely, PhD, MS,
James B. Duke professor of psychology and
behavioral economics at Duke University, is
dedicated to helping people live more sensible
– if not rational – lives. He will serve as a Faculty
Director with the Envolve Center in addition
to appointments at the Center for Cognitive
Neuroscience, the Department of Economics, and the School of
Medicine at Duke University. Ariely is also a founding member of the
Center for Advanced Hindsight.
holds joint appointments in the Brown School
and in the School of Medicine at Washington
University in St. Louis. She directs both the Center
for Obesity Prevention and Policy Research and
the Washington University Center for Diabetes
Translation Research and will serve as a Faculty
Director in the Envolve Center.
Matthew Kreuter, PhD, MPH,
is the Kahn Family Professor of Public Health and
associate dean for public health at the Brown
School at Washington University in St. Louis.
He is founder of the Brown School’s Health
Communication Research Laboratory, a widely
known and highly acclaimed Center now in its
19th year of continuous funding, and will serve
as a Faculty Director in the Envolve Center.
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MKT_CENTER_001 January 2016
Why aren’t we
in better health?
Unlocking the
mysteries of health
behavior change
Behavioral economics
Collaboration for
research-based healthcare
The Envolve Center for Health Behavior Change
is a unique collaboration between academic
researchers at Washington University in St. Louis
and Duke University, in conjunction with industry
leaders at the Envolve family of companies
and Centene. Together, we will implement and
evaluate evidence-based strategies to uncover
best practices that motivate consumers to take
action for change. With a team of nationally
known researchers, the Envolve Center will serve
as a model program for translating behavioral
healthcare research into viable, effective, and lifechanging applications.
WE WANT TO KNOW:
Can what we say, and
how we say it, actually alter
health outcomes?
How can we use research on
behavioral economics to change
ingrained health behaviors?
Do programs that work across
multiple generations lead to
healthier lives for entire families?
The Envolve Center for Health Behavior Change is
working towards finding these answers!
Tailored communications
In modern healthcare, communications
platforms are as diverse and important
as the consumers who use them. Creating health
communications tailored to consumers is a powerful
way to create engagement that ultimately leads to better
ownership of healthy decision making. The Envolve
Center’s Health Communications team will develop and
test strategies to increase the reach and effectiveness
of consumer health information, starting by collecting
consumer insights to design an online goal setting
platform. This area of work will include audience research,
prototype development, and controlled experiments.
Matthew Kreuter, PhD, a health communications expert
recently ranked in the top 1% of his field by Thompson/
Reuters, will lead this research.
OUR RESEARCH ON TAILORED COMMUNICATIONS
WILL ANSWER QUESTIONS LIKE...
›What is an effective
timeline and name
for a health coaching
program?
› How can we deliver
population health
using individuallypersonalized goals?
› How can we leverage
our interactions
with individuals to
encourage healthy
behaviors?
Designing effective solutions to today’s
healthcare challenges requires a model
that goes beyond simply educating consumers, as
evidence has shown education alone isn’t enough.
Viable solutions need to incorporate behavioral-based
approaches that remove barriers to healthful choices
and make the healthy choice the easy choice. The
Envolve Center’s Behavioral Economics team will use
the principles of behavioral economics to create and
test real-world health applications that better provide
for healthful consumer behavior. A primary objective of
this research is to improve the effectiveness of health
coaching services, provided through the Envolve family
of companies, by identifying behavior-based strategies
coaches can use to align individuals with optimal
pathways for making and sustaining healthier lifestyle
changes. The research team will evaluate current
coaching programs and develop recommended
strategies to increase the effectiveness
of the coaching interactions with
consumers to overcome barriers and
promote positive health behavior
change. Dan Ariely, PhD, an
internationally recognized expert
in behavioral economics and a New
York Times best-selling author, will
lead this research.
OUR RESEARCH ON BEHAVIORAL
ECONOMICS WILL EXPLORE...
› What cognitive biases › How will
prevent healthy
behaviors?
› How can we adjust
our programs to
work around or
remove barriers to
healthy living?
we integrate
innovative, researchbased concepts into
our programs?