What behavioral medicine researchers need to know to impact policy
Perspectives from public health officials on the frontlines of policy debates
February 22, 2023, 10am ET 7am PT / 4pm CET | 2.25 hours
REGISTER NOW
***
Speakers, Discussants and Moderators
Speaker - Elena Altieri, MBA, M.DirCOM - Founder and Lead of the WHO Behavioural Insights Unit
Elena Altieri has over twenty years of experience working on behaviour change for several international organizations, in more than 40 countries across all regions. She worked on a wide range of social and health issues such as natural disasters prevention, people trafficking, social inclusion, hearing and safe listening, unintentional injury prevention and road safety. Being a practitioner, she has applied social and behavioural change theory and techniques to policy making, programme design/implementation, strategic communications, and capacity building. Most recently she created the Behavioural Insights Unit at the World Health Organization which she leads; the unit is responsible for mainstreaming the use of behavioral science in the work of the organization and of its partners. Prior to joining WHO in 2011, Elena specialized in socio-economic development in Latin America. She has a Master Degree in Direction of Communications with a focus on marketing from the Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona in Barcelona, Spain; and an MBA in International Health Management from the Swiss Tropical Public Health Institute in Basel, Switzerland.
Speaker - Iveta Nagyova, PhD, FABMR - President of the EUPHA
Iveta Nagyova is the Head of the Department of Social and Behavioural Medicine and a Senior Research Leader at Pavol Jozef Safarik University (UPJS) in Kosice, Slovakia. She is also the President of the European Public Health Association (EUPHA), and a member of several advisory groups at the World Health Organisation (WHO), including the WHO Technical Advisory Group on Behavioural Insights and Sciences for Health and the WHO/Europe’s Regional Director’s Advisory Council on Innovation for Noncommunicable Diseases. Her research interests are in biobehavioural and psychosocial innovations in chronic condition prevention and management, non-pharmacological interventions, behaviour change, improvements in functional status and quality of life in persons with a chronic disease and their implications for integrated care. She is involved in academic publishing, supervision of PhD students, and knowledge translation. At the national level, she serves as an advisor to the WHO Country Office and the Slovak Ministry of Health in the field of chronic diseases, integrated care, behavioural insights, and public health. Her work was recognized internationally by the ABMR - 2021 Fellow of the Academy of Behavioural Medicine Research, for high levels of research productivity, excellence, and broad recognition for accomplishments.
Guest Discussant - Roxane Cohen Silver, PhD - Distinguished Professor Psychological Science (University of California, Irvine)
Roxane is Vice Provost for Academic Planning and Institutional Research and Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychological Science, the Department of Medicine, and the Program in Public Health at the University of California, Irvine. An international expert in the field of stress and coping, Roxane has spent over four decades studying acute and long-term psychological and physical reactions to stressful life experiences, including personal traumas such as loss, physical disability, and childhood sexual victimization, as well as larger collective events such as terror attacks, infectious disease outbreaks, and natural disasters across the world (e.g., U.S., Indonesia, Chile, Israel). Roxane is a previous two-term President of the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences (FABBS) and in 2016 served as President of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology. She was also a founding Director and Chair of the Board of Directors of Psychology Beyond Borders, an international nonprofit organization that facilitated research, intervention, and policy development in the prevention, preparedness, and response to terror attacks, conflict, or natural disasters across the world. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (in 4 Divisions), of the Association for Psychological Science, of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, and of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology. She is also a dedicated teacher, an active mentor of predoctoral and postdoctoral students and has received almost two dozen teaching/mentoring awards over her career.
Guest Discussant Juliane Baron, MPAff - Executive Director of the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences (FABBS)
Juliane is the Executive Director of the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (FABBS), a coalition of 29 scientific societies and nearly 60 academic departments. FABBS represents the interests of the brain and behavioral sciences on a wide range of federal budget and policy issues. FABBS serves as a resource to scientists interested in engaging with policymakers to connect research to policy. Previously, Julianne served as the Director of Government Relations at the American Educational Research Association, leading AERA’s education and advocacy efforts on Capitol Hill and with federal agencies. Prior to that, she was the deputy director of government and public affairs for the Population Association of America and the Association of Population Centers. Juliane’s science advocacy work has been informed by her time as an associate research scientist and project manager of Welfare, Children, & Families: A Three City Study, a multi-investigator study housed at Johns Hopkins University. For three years, Baron worked as a legislative staffer in the Texas House of Representatives. Baron received her BA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and her MPA from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas.
Moderator - Kim Lavoie, PhD - Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Medicine (University of Quebec at Montreal)
Kim is co-Director of the Montreal Behavioural Medicine Centre, holds the Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Medicine, and is a researcher in the Chronic Disease Research Division at Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal. She is a Full Professor in the Department of Psychology at University of Quebect at Montreal (UQAM) and an Adjunct Professor of Medicine at University of Montreal. She is internationally recognized for her research on the impact of psychological and behavioral factors on the development and progression of cardiovascular and lung diseases, and the impact of behavioral interventions, e.g., motivational communication, exercise, and behavioral weight loss, on key health behaviors and outcomes in chronic lung disease. She is also the Chair of the Canadian Network for Health Behaviour Change and Promotion (CAN-Change), a founding member of the International Behavioural Trials Network (IBTN) and an active member of the CHEP recommendation panel (Adherence Subcommittee). Finally, she is an internationally recognized expert in motivational communication; over 15,000 health professionals across Canada, the US, Europe (France, Spain, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Portugal, Italy, Estonia, the UK), India and Australia/New Zealand have attended her professional training workshops. She currently holds multiple grants in the area of motivational communication training and efficacy for behaviour change in chronic disease.
Moderator - Eli Puterman, PhD - Canada Research Chair in Physical Activity and Health (University of British Columbia)
Eli is an associate professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Kinesiology and the Canada Research Chair in Physical Activity and Health. His research, developed in collaboration with community, seeks to develop, evaluate, and disseminate physical activity programs and initiatives among hard to reach and equity-deserving populations. Dr. Puterman’s work has been recognized with several young scholar awards, including from the Society of Behavioral Medicine (2014), the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research (2015), and the International Society for Psychoneuroendocrinology (2018). Dr. Puterman is an Associate Editor for Health Psychology, serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for the John W. Brick Mental Health Foundation, and is an Executive Member of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research Executive Council.