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Conference Keynote Speakers

Jeremy Grimshaw

University of Ottawa, Canada

Paschal Sheeran

Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.

Sónia Dias

National School of Public Health, NOVA University Lisbon, Portugal

Amanda Daley

Loughborough University, UK

Jeremy Grimshaw

Senior Scientist, Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, a Full Professor in the Department of Medicine, University of Ottawa

Implementing evidence-based policies, practices and behaviours: building the evidence base

Abstract
Despite the growing evidence base about interventions and programs to improve societies and citizen well-being, there are often evidence-practice gaps (ie societies and services fail to optimally deliver policies, practices and behaviours). This has led to substantial interest in implementation and implementation science (initially in the health and public health systems). This presentation will introduce core concepts and approaches from implementation science and consider the rich intersection with health psychology.
Bio
Dr Jeremy Grimshaw received a MBChB from the University of Edinburgh, UK. He trained as a family physician prior to undertaking a PhD in health services research at the University of Aberdeen. He moved to Canada in 2002. His research focuses on the evaluation of interventions to disseminate and implement evidence-based practice in healthcare. Dr. Grimshaw is a Senior Scientist, Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, a Full Professor in the Department of Medicine, University of Ottawa and held a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Health Knowledge Transfer and Uptake (2002-2022). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and a Corresponding Fellow of the Royal College of Edinburgh. He has been awarded the CIHR Knowledge Translation award twice and received the 2018 CIHR Barer-Flood career achievement award for Health Services and Policy Research. He has over 700 peer reviewed publications. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he was co-lead of COVID-END. He is the co-lead of the Global Commission on Evidence to Address Societal Challenges.

Paschal Sheeran

Ph.D, Stephen J. Walsh Distinguished Professor

Tasks in Health Behaviour Change

Abstract

Promoting health behavior change presents at least three key challenges: (a) conceptualizing First, it might be useful to think about health behaviors as tasks that call for different types of action. Overarching tasks could be maintenance versus change, and change can be seen to embrace initiation, escalation, reduction, and desistance as subtasks.  Second, understanding want/should conflict could shed light on the difficulty of behavior change. A new measure of want/should conflict is introduced, with implications for intentional versus habitual control of health behaviors. Intervention Benchmarking is suggested as a tool to advance the field, fostering a more cumulative science of behavior change.

Bio
Paschal Sheeran completed Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at University College Dublin and a PhD at the University of Sheffield, where he was also a faculty member for 20 years before moving to UNC-Chapel Hill in 2013. Paschal’s research program aims to understand the intention-behaviour ‘gap’, test the efficacy of if-then plans (implementation intentions) in promoting health behaviour change, appreciate the role of implicit influences on health actions, develop a self-regulation perspective on affect and behaviour, and undertake crucial tests of health behaviour theories. Despite modest progress with each of these aims, his research has attracted a number of grants, awards, and fellowships.

Paschal writes about himself in the third person at length here: https://psheeran.web.unc.edu

Sónia Dias

Dean and Full Professor of Public Health and Health Promotion

Public Health challenges and how to address them: the valuable contribution of the social sciences

Abstract

Many of the current public health challenges, like the impact of climate change in health and well-being, population aging, the increase in chronic diseases, loneliness, mental health needs and health inequities, put growing pressure on health systems and call for a paradigm shift towards efforts to attain good health for all. This presentation will discuss the relevance of socio-behavioural sciences for informing policies development and health interventions to achieving and maintaining health throughout life. Insights on people's needs, resources and life contexts, as well as on dynamics, barriers and facilitators can help deeply understand ‘How can we best promote health and well-being at all ages?’ and ‘How can we effectively tackle social determinants and reduce health inequities?’. Participatory and co-creation approaches are valuable to ensure communities engagement and local ownership in addressing public health challenges. Within this perspective, public health efforts can boost the creation of health-promoting environments and empower people, communities and organizations to take action and implement effective and sustained interventions, thus contributing to achieve the global goals for sustainable development leaving no one behind.

Bio
Sónia Dias is the Dean and Full Professor at National School of Public Health, NOVA University Lisbon. She has a PhD in International Health and a Degree in Psychology. Prof Sónia is a public health specialist and social scientist, with 20 years of experience in health promotion, socio-behavioural sciences, health literacy, and disease prevention. She has extensive experience in Public Health research projects (EU and Portuguese-speaking African countries) driven to address health inequalities, with a focus on supporting the design, implementation and evaluation of interventions and policies. Professor Dias also has been involved in the conceptual and methodological development of research and intervention with vulnerable populations, using participatory health research, combining quantitative and qualitative methods, promoting the exchange of information and a basis for comparative studies. She was a member of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) of WHO/TDR, has acted as a consultant for several international organizations, and is highly engaged in several scientific networks. She has authored more than 150 scientific publications.

Amanda Daley

Professor of Behavioural Medicine and an NIHR Research Professor in Public Health

Making every health care consultation count: Promoting health behaviour change in primary care and community health settings

Abstract
Worldwide, governments are trying to find the most effective interventions and services to help people lead a physically active lifestyle and help those living with obesity to lose weight. All health professionals in primary care and community health have a unique opportunity to routinely screen, prompt and provide physical activity and weight management interventions to patients, through the millions of consultations that take place worldwide each week. This presentation will discuss the evidence regarding the effectiveness of primary care and community health settings for promoting physical activity and supporting healthy weight management in the population. Using the Snacktivity™ approach to promoting physical activity as an example, the presentation will also discuss some of the implementation challenges of promoting health behaviours in these contexts and offer some suggestions for facilitating change. Primary care and community health delivered interventions may help those who would not attend a programme delivered outside of these settings and some of challenges of inclusion and diversity of opportunity to participate in health behaviour interventions will be addressed.
Bio

Amanda is a Professor of Behavioural Medicine and an NIHR Research Professor in Public Health. She is also the Director of the Centre for Lifestyle Medicine and Behaviour (CLiMB) at Loughborough University (https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/climb/). Her work is focused on investigating the effects of lifestyle interventions on health outcomes and she is the chief investigator on several on-going trials that are examining the effectiveness of public health based physical activity and weight management interventions. Amanda is a Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society and a Registered Psychologist with the Health and Care Professions Council. Amanda has published more than 180 papers and has been awarded significant grant funding during her career. Amanda provides expert guidance to health charities and is a scientific panel member for Yorkshire Cancer Research. She is also an advisor to the British Society for Lifestyle Medicine, aiming to transform health care in society through helping the public to live a healthier life. Her work also has a global perspective where she has been using her expertise in Africa to help shape and promote healthy lifestyles in this region. Amanda is a keen runner and enjoys listening to all types of music, as well as watching cricket and tennis.