Understanding individual decision-making in health
pharmafile | November 14, 2011 | Feature | Medical Communications |
Why now is the right time for pharma to get closer to patients and health consumers
We thought we’d start with a paragraph from an old post on Dan Ariely’s blog. For those not familiar with Dan Ariely he’s a decision-making and behavioural economist, and both his entertaining books – Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality – come highly recommended.
He quotes a piece of research by Ralph Keeney (Operation Research, 2008) in which he found that “44.5% of all premature deaths in the US result from personal decisions, decisions that involve among others: smoking; not exercising; criminality; drug and alcohol use; and unsafe sexual behaviour.” That’s a pretty stark reminder of what we are dealing with when we set out to create health campaigns to improve behaviour – the stakes are high. Whilst not all health conditions and outcomes can be affected solely through our own personal actions, few will not be influenced at least to some extent. This could range from:-
• Improving our chances of recovery after an operation by following physiotherapy advice;
• Helping to manage our long-term conditions better by adapting our lifestyles or seeking the support of others to assist psychological well-being; or
• Choosing if and when to take the medicines that are recommended to us by healthcare professionals.
Inspiring people to make healthy choices is not always an easy task especially because people are often irrational, as the titles on Dan’s books convey. The fact we don’t always conform to what we think might be logical approaches to decision-making, makes it all the more important that we invest time and resources into understanding the key factors at play.
One definite thing to avoid is to start making assumptions.
Thanks to the society-wide rise of the empowered consumer which is largely due to the digital revolution and the explosion of social media channels – but also the shifting disease model to one based on lifestyles – we live in a very different health landscape to five or even ten years ago. Add to this the move towards measurable outcomes (due in no small part to tougher economic times) – whether related to effectiveness of medicines, health service provision or even in our own discipline of communications and marketing – and the trend towards people being better equipped to make decisions around their own health is evident.
Indeed, the government’s mantra “no decision about me without me” says it all (whatever your opinion about the NHS reforms, no-one is arguing against this).
Historically pharma has shied away from engagement with patients, due to the strict regulatory and ethical codes it operates within, but these societal trends have rendered that position out of date. Yes, promoting prescription medicines to patients is quite rightly not on the agenda but there is still a legitimate right, if not a moral obligation, for such companies to provide information and support to those patients that such medicines are designed to help.
Whilst the role of healthcare professionals and the commissioners of healthcare services will continue to be critical in achieving successful health outcomes, patients themselves must be an equal priority for engagement.
In order to meet this new world order head on, as an agency we’ve created our own framework for exploring individual decision-making in health – Healthscapes. To meet the needs of our broad client base, the model is designed to work across the complete health spectrum, from those taking prescription medicines or managing long-term conditions, through to others making simple, healthy lifestyle changes.
Insight has always been at the heart of our communications programmes, whether tapping into the wealth of research information conducted by our client companies or investing in our own methodologies and insight gathering. But the field of behavioural science has evolved significantly in recent times, in line with the environmental changes already discussed, so we felt that a fresh look was required. Following an extensive literature view conducted by an experienced academic, the verdict was that whilst there were some excellent and valid models in existence for understanding consumer and patient behaviour, there wasn’t one that met all our needs. Enter – Healthscapes.
It’s a truly bespoke framework designed to provide us with greater structure to the research planning process, and our clients with a deeper understanding of individual patient/consumer health behaviour – or why people make the health decisions they do. Born from qualitative and quantitative research – four patient focus groups and a survey of 10,000 people – taking four months to develop, the model focuses on six key factors of time, place, action, family impact, personal risk and coping strategies. Our study shows that by framing questions around these key themes, marketing and communications consultants can uncover a greater depth of insight and establish a more robust understanding of the audiences they are trying to reach.
For example, when it comes to ‘time’, Healthscapes prompts us to explore and frame questions around a broad spectrum – the short-term e.g. day-to-day practices; the medium-term e.g. over limited time frames such as the school term or the working week; and the long-term e.g. the life course. Similarly, for ‘place’ the framework might prompt us to look at diverse range of factors, spanning places of birth through to the physical places an illness might manifest itself.
The specific factors change depending on the illness, but the outcome is the same – a more robust set of insights on which to build communications programmes.
Using Healthscapes doesn’t have to be an extensive or expensive process though. It is flexible enough to accommodate every level of insight investment, meaning that it can be used at the simplest level via analysing desk research and very small scale validation research, or on a grander scale crunching reams of market research data where this is available.
It’s a really exciting time for health education. Whether it’s through the channels we use or the type of strategic approach we take, the growing influence of the individual in the health decision-making process is driving our industry to explore new ways to reach and engage audiences. Having frameworks that push us to explore the broadest possible range of influential factors, should provide us with that golden nugget of insight that unlocks the key to supporting personal healthy decision-making for better health outcomes. Additionally, the application of a more evidence-based approach should provide consultants and clients, in this ever-changing world, with that extra confidence to take new and previously untried routes.
Jo Spadaccino is head of pharma & life sciences, and Stuart Hehir is creative and digital director at Pegasus. Click here to see our company profile
