Tailored interventions and choice architecture strategies for healthy and sustainable eating

Nowadays many people do not meet nutritional recommendations having unhealthy and unsustainable diets that contribute to many chronic health conditions, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and obesity (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020) as well as to many environmental problems, such as climate change and loss of biodiversity. Strategically designed and delivered health communication interventions offer promising strategies for promoting healthier behaviors. Tailored communication based on the needs, preferences, and personal characteristics of the target has been widely applied in the area of health promotion with remarkable results in multiple domains, including diet (Noar & Harrington, 2016). Choice architecture strategies like nudging (Thaler & Sunstein, 2009) are another promising approach to promoting beneficial behavior change, including improving the healthfulness of food purchasing and diet (Lindstrom et al., 2022).

1) Designing tailored (matching target psychological characteristics) traditional and digital interventions, and choice architecture strategies for healthy and sustainable eating in public canteens and out of home settings (interventions will include: analysis of psychosocial predictors of behavior change, like risk perception, self-efficacy and outcome expectancies; detection and monitoring of diet-related activities, analysis of food-external factors - as packaging, health claims, labels and environmental characteristics);
2) case studies selection (public and corporate canteens and different non domestic settings such as hospitals and restaurants);
3) testing interventions and strategies (mainly in the Milan area);
4) assessing target-specific and context-specific effects of interventions and strategies;
5) communication and dissemination plan.

1. Expand knowledge about the role of psychosocial factors in diet change behavior.

2. Improve healthy and sustainable food choices among adult consumers in non domestic settings.

3. Identify specific combinations of communication and choice architecture strategies for use in different food purchasing/consuming contexts.

4. Lay the groundwork for innovative food policies in which nudging and other psychology-based strategies should be part of a broad and multipronged approach to improving dietary behavior.