“We need to improve the messaging.” It’s a common response when healthcare campaigns fail to generate the outcomes expected. If healthcare professionals aren’t adopting a new treatment, patients aren’t engaging with support programmes, or a service isn’t getting traction, the instinct is often to focus on communications. More education, stronger claims and increased awareness all seem like logical places to start. The problem is that these solutions assume we already understand the cause of the challenge we’re facing. Behaviour Change Science challenges that assumption. Rather than starting with the intervention, it starts with understanding what’s driving or blocking behaviour change in the first place. The question isn’t “What’s the best solution?” It’s “Why is this behaviour happening?” Only once that question is answered can the most effective intervention be identified. When Awareness Isn’t the Problem Blocking Behaviour Change Healthcare communications often operate on the belief that increased knowledge will lead to action. Sometimes that’s true. However, many healthcare challenges persist despite people understanding exactly what they should be doing. Healthcare professionals may be fully aware of the clinical evidence but continue to follow established routines. Patients may understand the benefits of treatment adherence but still struggle to take their medication consistently. The issue isn’t often one of knowledge. Human behaviour is influenced by far more than awareness. Habits, environmental cues, social norms, competing priorities and practical barriers all shape the decisions people make every day. If those factors aren’t understood, even the most compelling communications campaign can struggle to deliver meaningful change. What The Rise in Under-16 Social Media Bans Can Teach Us About Behaviour Change One of the most interesting examples of behavioural diagnosis can be found outside healthcare. For years, concerns about excessive social media use among children and teenages were met largely with awareness campaigns and features to allow individual control/personalisation. The assumption was straightforward: if people understood the risks associated with spending too much time online, they would naturally make decisions on how to change their behaviour. Yet many people already understood the problem, and often their behaviour wasn’t driven by choice, but automatic habit. Most of us have experienced that moment when we realise we’ve been scrolling for far longer than intended. We know we should stop, but we continue anyway. That’s because the behaviour isn’t simply driven by awareness. Social media platforms are designed to encourage continued engagement through notifications, personalised content and infinite scrolling. These features create habits and reward loops that operate almost automatically. Once policymakers began examining the behavioural drivers behind excessive social media use and the barriers to behaviour change, the conversation started to shift. Rather than focusing solely on educating users and giving choices, attention turned towards interventions that could change the environment around these younger users. Whether or not those interventions are the right answer isn’t the focus of this article. The important lesson is that understanding the behaviour changed the type of solution being considered. The Same Challenge Exists in Healthcare The same principle applies across healthcare and pharmaceutical marketing. When a treatment isn’t being adopted, it’s tempting to assume healthcare professionals need more information. When patients aren’t engaging with a programme, it’s easy to conclude that awareness is low. Sometimes those assumptions are correct. But often the reality is more complicated. Healthcare professionals are working within busy systems shaped by habits, processes and competing demands. Patients are balancing treatment decisions with work, family responsibilities and everyday life. Their behaviour is influenced by factors that extend well beyond the information they receive. If the real barrier is habit, social influence or an environmental constraint, then improving the messaging alone is unlikely to change the outcome. And if we want support programmes to be stuck with, or want HCPs to move from trial to usage, how can we make their experiences more rewarding? Why Behavioural Diagnosis Matters for Behaviour Change This is where behavioural diagnosis becomes so valuable. Rather than making assumptions about what people need, behavioural diagnosis identifies the factors that are genuinely influencing behaviour. It helps uncover the barriers preventing action, the drivers encouraging it and the contexts in which behaviour occurs. Sometimes that diagnosis leads to a communications solution. Sometimes it points in a completely different direction. The key is that the intervention is informed by evidence rather than instinct. After all, the most effective intervention isn’t always the most familiar one. It’s the one that addresses the real behavioural challenge. Before You Build Your Next Behaviour Change Campaign Before investing in new messaging, channels or creative assets, it may be worth pausing to ask a different question: do you know what’s actually driving or blocking the behaviour change you need to achieve? If the answer is unclear, a behavioural diagnosis can provide the insight needed to identify the right intervention and avoid solving the wrong problem. At HRW, we help pharmaceutical and healthcare organisations uncover the drivers and barriers behind everything from HCP engagement and treatment adoption, to patient adherence and service uptake. By understanding the behaviour first, we help clients design interventions that create meaningful, measurable change. Explore our behavioural science expertise and discover what a behavioural diagnosis could uncover. Reach out to our experts by filling in the Contact form below. Apply Now!