Handbook on the State of the Art in Applied Psychology

CHAPTER 6Effects, Mechanisms, and Implementation: Ways to Improve Interventions and Policies Promoting Healthy Diet and Physical Activity

Aleksandra Luszczynska

SWPS University of Social Sciences & Humanities, Wroclaw, Poland

University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, CO, USA

CARE‐BEH Center for Applied Research on Health Behavior and Health, SWPS University, Wroclaw, Poland

Abstract

When planning, enacting, and reporting health promotion interventions and policies, health psychologists focus on interventions’ effects on health behaviors and on elucidating reflective or reflexive mechanisms responsible for these effects. However, this dominant approach is criticized. The focus on interventions’ effects on behavioral outcomes and underlying psychosocial mechanisms may hinder the contribution that research makes in evaluating the true impact of the interventions were they to be implemented in “real‐world” contexts. This chapter proposes that beyond using reflexive and impulsive models and frameworks elucidating psychosocial mechanisms of change, researchers and practitioners should use models, frameworks, and taxonomies for (a) evaluation and monitoring and (b) implementation of interventions and policies. In particular, the chapter discusses evaluation models and frameworks, focusing on different types of outcomes: health outcomes, environment outcomes, process‐related outcomes, and implementation outcomes. Next, approaches that explain underlying mechanisms, responsible for ...