Kirstin Appelt
UBC Decision Insights for Business & Society

Stephanie Papik
BC Ministry of Health

1. Keeping Girls in School: A Behavioural Science Approach to Preventing Child Marriage and Adolescent Pregnancy in Zambia
   Allison Zelkowitz*, Leon Reuss, Biljana Bogicevic, & Jimena Llopis (Center for Utilizing Behavioral Insights for Children (CUBIC)), Titus Mudenda & Richard Kalyata (Save the Children Zambia)

   CUBIC and Save the Children Zambia applied behavioural science to keep girls in school through key transition grades in Petauke District, Zambia, using a three-session workshop series that shifted perceived social norms around child marriage and adolescent pregnancy and helped build a foundation for more resilient futures.

    

2. Improving Secondary School Attendance through Family Engagement: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial in Uruguay
   Paula Freiría*, Lucía Rosich, Irina Sánchez, Guillermina Suárez, & Lucía Villar (Ceibal)

   This project tested whether brief, personalized WhatsApp messages to families—flagging accumulated absences, key dates, and low grades—could reduce absenteeism among first-year secondary students in Uruguay. Across 255 schools and over 30,000 students, the intervention cut absences by 7% (2.2 fewer days per year), showing that low-cost nudges closing informational gaps between schools and families can meaningfully strengthen engagement and attendance at a critical transition point.

    

3. Building Mental Health Resilience: Using Behavioural Insights to Help 2.8 Million Californian Teens Get Ahead of their Breaking Point
   Penny Norman* (Rescue Agency)

   With youth anxiety and mental illness escalating, we created a statewide mental health prevention campaign to help teens get ahead of their negative emotions and build resilience. This led to meaningful change across our evaluation—impacting stigma, mental health literacy and help-seeking actions.

Moderator: tbd (tbd)

The Science & Practice of Constructive Disagreement

Disagreement can be a source of insight and a driver of innovation, or a source of stress and a catalyst for drama. Julia Minson, Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, will share insights from her new book, How to Disagree Better. Drawing on decades of cutting-edge research, Julia will explain why and how engaging with contradictory perspectives without turning to arguing leads to better results and better relationships. She will offer concrete strategies for improving conversations across disagreement in the workplace, among family members, and in civic life. 

Julia Minson is a Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and the founder of Disagreeing Better, LLC—a behavioural science consultancy and training firm. She is a decision scientist with research interests in conflict management, negotiations, and judgment and decision making. Her main line of research addresses the “psychology of disagreement” and explores simple, scalable interventions to help people become more receptive to others’ opposing views. She is the author of the new bestselling book, How to Disagree Better.

Moderator: Kerri Buschel
WorkSafeBC

Track 1: Communication for Conservation 

1. Simple Signs, Safer Campsites: Scaling a Behavioural Nudge Experiment to Reduce Human-Bear Conflict  
   Prasun Ghimire*, Sima Khanal, Sumeet Gulati, & David Hardisty (University of British Columbia)
   
   This project uses a randomized field experiment across three BC provincial parks to evaluate whether behaviourally informed signage can reduce unsafe camper practices and promote safer coexistence between people and bears. Building on previous findings, we find that clear signage reduces bear-attractant violations more consistently than enforcement-style warnings.

2. Strengthening Democratic Participation in Conservation Policy: A Behavioural Insights Trial with CPAWS
   Andrea Bischoff*, Alex Barron, & Kim Khoo (UBC Advanced Professional Certificate in Behavioural Insights), & David Hardisty (University of British Columbia)
   
   This project tested two Behavioural Insights levers (simplification and motivational framing) to increase both the quantity and quality of public engagement in government decision-making. Using a 10,000-person randomized controlled trial with Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) supporters, the study identified scalable strategies that strengthen democratic participation through personalized letters to decision makers.Track 1: New BI Tools for Policy & Process
   
   Moderator: tbd (tbd)
   

Track 2: Simplifying Complex Health Decisions

1. Communicating in a Complex Health Information Environment: A Messaging Experiment to Promote Trust and Resilience to Misinformation 
   Tyler Good* & Catherine Guo (Public Health Agency of Canada)

   How can public health communications support people's informed decision-making, while they navigate an environment that can present information that is incomplete, confusing, or misleading? This presentation will share insights from a nationally-representative survey that included a randomized controlled trial evaluating the effectiveness of message strategies at promoting trust and misinformation discernment amidst our complex health information ecosystem.

2. Finding the Right Path: Using Behavioural Insights to Help British Columbians Navigate BC PharmaCare Coverage
   Amy Cox*, Emily Fuller*, Emily Graff, Scott Jones, & Sara Shields (BC Ministry of Health)

   We used behavioural insights to create the PharmaCare Compass, a public-facing tool that helps people understand and navigate the BC PharmaCare program by identifying coverage options tailored to them. We will share what we learned, what worked, and the challenges of creating and evaluating a user-centered design approach to support the public in understanding a complex set of public drug coverage programs.
   
   Moderator: tbd (tbd)

Track 3: Designing for Better Service

1. From Behavioural Diagnosis to Community Action: Applying a Social Marketing Behaviour Change Planning Canvas to Improve Domestic Abuse Help-Seeking and Referral Pathways
   Melissa Blair* (Dharmarketing Strategic Social Impact) & Lisa Watson (Kelowna Women's Shelter)

   Behavioural science frameworks are often difficult for community organizations to apply in practice. This presentation introduces the Social Marketing Behaviour Change Planning Canvas, a practitioner-focused framework that translates behavioural diagnosis into actionable intervention design, illustrated through its application to a new 24-hour domestic abuse community support program.

    

2. Increasing Self Check-in: Using Behavioural Insights to Improve Service Delivery
   Erin Anderson*, Crystal Chan, & Nathália McCullagh (UBC Advanced Professional Certificate in Behavioural Insights), & Jiaying Zhao (University of British Columbia)

   How can organizations encourage the use of self-serve kiosks in their spaces? This randomized controlled trial tested how changing kiosk placement and onsite signage could better guide customers to self check-in for their appointments at Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) offices, and offers insights for anyone managing customer or public service spaces.
   
   Moderator: Clea Stone (The Sound)

Track 4: Increasing Uptake of EVs and Vaccines

1. A Knowledge-Contingent Communication Strategy for Promoting Electric Vehicle Adoption 
   Jiawen Li* (Peking University & University of British Columbia) & Jingjing Ma (Peking University)

   This study examines the effectiveness of functional versus psychological appeals in promoting electric vehicle adoption, aiming to encourage sustainable transportation practices. We find that functional (vs. psychological) appeals are more effective among new (vs. existing) EV users and at the early (vs. late) stage of product life cycle, driven by product knowledge.

    

2. Looking Beneath Vaccine Confidence: Behavioural Pathways Shaping Vaccination Decisions in Canada 
   Mark Morrissey* (Public Health Agency of Canada)

   Vaccination decisions are not driven by confidence alone. Using national survey data from PHAC's Health, Attitudes and Behavioural Insights Tracker (HABIT), this project examines how institutional trust, vaccine beliefs, and structural and practical barriers interact to shape vaccination behaviour—and how unpacking these relationships can reveal more targeted opportunities for action.
   
   Moderator: tbd (tbd)

Trust & Behavioural Insights

Trust is a pre-condition for a resilient future, but research shows that trust in institutions and each other is declining. Our panelists will join moderator Kirstin Appelt (UBC-DIBS) to discuss the current trust landscape and how behavioural insights can help.

1. Brief Email Interventions Boost Climate Action at Scale
   Jay Olson*, Elliot MacDonell, Sofia Deleniv, Nathan Collett, Meghan Corbett, Kathryn Harper, Sarah Wall, Kieran Findlater, & Jessica Leifer (Government of Canada)

   Switching to electric heating with a heat pump is one of the most effective ways for homeowners in cold climates to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In a pre-registered study of 100,000 households in Toronto, we found that particular email communications were effective at promoting heating system upgrades.

    

2. Effort Reduction: A Behavioural Redesign of Rent Review
   Dawn Kelly*, Isaac Koenig-Workman*, Natacha Lortie, & Kate Lambert (UBC Advanced Professional Certificate in Behavioural Insights), & Jiaying Zhao (University of British Columbia)

   Every year, subsidized housing tenants risk eviction not because they can't pay rent, but because paperwork gets in the way. This project tested whether redesigning the annual rent review package could reduce that risk using behavioural insights and testing via a randomized controlled trial with Capital Regional Housing Corporation in Victoria, BC.

    

3. Organ Donation Registrations in BC and ON
   Louise Mason* (BC Behavioural Insights Group (BC BIG)), Amelia Usher* (Ontario Behavioural Insights Unit (Ontario BIU)), Tak Ishikawa, Anna Burrowes, Steph Wilkie, Stina Grant, Mikayla Ford, & Carl Jensen (BC BIG), Syju John (former BC BIG), Elaine Yong & Irene Phan (BC Transplant), & Laura Amaral (Ontario BIU)

   Can a partnership between the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), provincial behavioural insights units in British Columbia and Ontario, and provincial organ donation registries help to increase organ donation rates? The CRA has been collecting email addresses from Canadians during their annual tax filing for the last few years. The BC Behavioural Insights Group and the Ontario Behavioural Insights Unit have been working with BC Transplant and Trillium Gift of Life Network to test behaviourally informed email frames to increase organ donation registrations.

Moderator: tbd (tbd)

Carl Jensen
BC Behavioural Insights Group

Stephanie Papik
BC Ministry of Health