Policy

Margarida Gaspar de Matos, clinical psychologist, researcher and head of the ISAMB's Supportive Environments for Individuals’ Lifespan Development research group, and Osvaldo Santos, clinical and health psychologist, researcher and head of the ISAMB's Environmental Health Behavior Lab, integrated the Task Force on Behavioral Sciences created by the Portuguese Government 1) to collect and produce scientific evidence in the field of behavioral sciences applied to the context of COVID-19, 2) to support directly the decision-making process and to address recommendations for evidence-based public policies, specifically regarding the implementation, testing and evaluation of strategies, materials and instruments for facilitation, communication and action for and with citizens, aimed at sustained behavior change, 3) to make recommendations on the creation of a social context that facilitates communication and behavioral action, aiming at increasing the involvement of citizens and the various actors of the social system in the establishment of a common purpose and social objectives to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, 4) to make recommendations for effective crisis communication and communication of risks of contagion by SARS-CoV-2, adapted to specific sociodemographic, geographic and psychosocial profiles, which allow creating conditions that facilitate adherence and maintenance of new behaviors, 5) to make recommendations on behavioral change interventions that allow the increase and maintenance of adherence to behaviors to prevent the risk of contagion by SARS-CoV-2, based on behavioral models and associated scientific evidence. Margarida Gaspar de Matos was appointed as the Task Force Coordinator and Osvaldo Santos was the leader of the Work Package 3 dedicated to the synthesis of scientific evidence related to the promotion of health behaviors, at an individual and collective level, in the context of the pandemic. In this context, fifteen policy briefs were produced. More information here.