Context:

Studies show that a vegetarian diet can offer a range of health benefits such as reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and various types of cancer. Despite this, meat consumption remains substantially high amongst the Lebanese population. In 2019, Nudge Lebanon, in collaboration with students from the American University of Beirut, designed a behavioral intervention to increase salad orders at a local restaurant in Beirut.

Behavioral Challenge:

Although individuals are aware of the importance of vegetables in their daily diets, the majority of people still overwhelmingly consume non-vegetarian food items.

Intervention Summary:

Subjects received a dynamic social norm illustrating the increasing trend of vegetable consumption in Lebanon which was delivered through a short survey they were asked to complete when seated at their table.

Impact:

The intervention led to a statistically significant increase in the probability of a salad being ordered by diners by 54%.

Context:

With a rapidly growing population and a rise in poverty levels, measles has reemerged in low coverage areas across Lebanon. In response, the Accelerated Immunization Activities (AIA) program was launched to provide quality immunization services for every child through the primary healthcare system. In 2018, Nudge Lebanon, in collaboration with UNICEF and the Ministry of Public Health, implemented and evaluated a behavioral intervention to improve the delivery of the AIA program.

Behavioral Challenge:

Many caretakers fail to vaccinate their children due to lack of trust in the quality of services provided by healthcare centers, a strong belief that they are entitled to received better vaccination services, the adverse influence of peers who have had a negative experience at a healthcare center, neglect and forgetfulness, and the lack of awareness that others are using the service.

Intervention Summary:

Subjects received a behaviorally-informed calendar that used a collection of behavioral tools including social norms, commitment, implementation intention plan, effect of messenger, and a salient reminder utilizing the kitchen-sink approach.

Impact:

The intervention led to a statistically significant increase in the probability of household vaccinating at least one child by 50%.

Context:

High blood pressure or hypertension is one of the leading risk factors contributing to cardiovascular diseases. In 2018, Nudge Lebanon and its partners designed a two-phase intervention offering free blood pressure readings to participants in the Beirut Marathon, and nudged those with hypertension to seek medical care.

Behavioral Challenge:

Many individuals fail to schedule routine medical check-ups with their healthcare providers because they are not aware of pre-existing conditions or they are forgetful.

Intervention Summary:

Subjects were screened for high blood pressure at the Beirut Marathon. Twenty five days later, those with hypertension received a personalized WhatsApp message including their name, their recorded blood pressure, and a statement urging them to seek medical attention.

Impact:

The intervention led to a statistically significant increase in the probability of seeking medical attention by 62.5%.

Context:

In 2015, the Ministry of Public Health Lebanon launched the 2015-2020 National Mental Health Strategy in an effort to integrate mental health into Primary Healthcare centres through the National Mental Health Programme (NMHP) . To complement the objectives of the National Mental Health Strategy in 2018, Nudge Lebanon, in collaboration with NMHP, designed and implemented a behavioral intervention to increase the likelihood of mental health patients following-up with their health providers.

Behavioral Challenge:

Individuals fail to follow-up with their mental health providers due to forgetfulness, which can be more prominent among patients with depression as they can have a tendency to be more forgetful.

Intervention Summary:

Subjects received a self-assessment card to track their daily mood change and to remind them of their prescheduled follow up appointment.

Impact:

The intervention led to a statistically significant increase in the probability of following-up with mental health providers by 31%.

Context:

Lebanese and displaced Syrians have difficulty in achieving financial stability due to a lack of formal employment opportunities and poor financial management skills. In 2019, Nudge Lebanon, in collaboration with Positive Planet International and the Makhzoumi Foundation, designed an intervention to re-engage a group of entrepreneurs previously enrolled in a business training program and improve their learning outcomes.

Behavioral Challenge:

Vulnerable individuals facing scarcity have limited cognitive bandwidth to engage in learning material and financial planning

Intervention Summary:

The intervention entailed sending SMS messages utilizing ‘family identity’ and ‘loss aversion’ framing with corresponding links to short videos reinforcing previous learning outcomes (i.e. saving, budgeting, financial planning, and spending). In addition, pre and post recall tests were administered to assess learning outcomes before and after the intervention.

Impact:

The intervention results descriptively show that those who watched at least one of the four videos reported higher test scores than those who did not watch any of the videos.

Context:

To combat endemic corruption plaguing Lebanon, the Lebanese Advocacy and Legal Advice Center (LALAC) was established to provide free legal advice and information to witnesses and victims of corruption. In 2018, Nudge Lebanon, in collaboration with Lebanese Transparency Association, conducted an experiment with a Land Registry of Baabda to increase the use of the LALAC anti-corruption hotline.

Behavioral Challenge:

Individuals fail to report cases of corruption due to lack of awareness about anti-corruption hotlines, they perceive that corruption is on the rise which lowers expectations for change, and the perceived inefficiency of official complaint channels.

Intervention Summary:

Salient posters and roll-ups were distributed in key locations in the Baabda central area about the LALAC hotline.

Impact:

The intervention led to a 6-fold increase in traffic to the call centre, a result directly associated to the campaign.

Context:

As part of its ongoing efforts to alleviate the impact of the war in Yemen on its inhabitants, the UNDP and its partners developed psychosocial support sessions to help participants cope with trauma, address conflicts, and build social cohesion. In 2018, Nudge Lebanon, in collaboration with UNDP, designed a behavioral intervention in Yemen to increase the likelihood of vulnerable youth attending psychosocial support sessions.

Behavioral Challenge:

Many vulnerable youth fail to attend community support sessions because they have limited processing power, experience present bias, are forgetful or procrastinate. These challenges are amplified under the increased stress of conflict and poverty.

Intervention Summary:

Subjects received a registration form that included a commitment section where they could tick a box to “promise to attend all 3 session”, a map of the session location to make it easy to find it, and later received SMS reminders.

Impact:

The intervention led to a statistically significant increase in the likelihood of vulnerable youth attending community support sessions by 23%.

Context:

Online recruitment by violent extremist organizations has proven to be a pernicious problem.

In recent years, hundreds of US and European citizens have joined extremist organizations in the Middle East or were apprehended in the attempt. In 2019, Nudge Lebanon and researchers from the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with B4Development, developed and tested a novel online game, Radicalise, which aims to combat the effectiveness of online recruitment strategies used by extremist organizations.

Behavioral Challenge:

People are more vulnerable to manipulative arguments and malicious communications that they have not been exposed to earlier.

Intervention Summary:

Participants played the Radicalise game, which gave them the opportunity to experience and orchestrate a simulated recruitment mission by taking the perspective of the “bad guy”. By way of playing the game, participants were cognitively engaged in the process of refuting weakened arguments that were presented to them about various manipulation techniques  used in typical online extremist recruitments, helping confer attitudinal resistance against potential real attempts to target them with extremist propaganda. After playing the games, rated a number of WhatsApp messages for to their manipulativeness as well as a number of vignettes of people based on how vulnerable they are to extremist recruitment.

Impact:

After playing the game, the treatment group is significantly better at assessing the manipulativeness of these messages, compared to the control group. The treatment group were also significantly better at identifying the vulnerability of targets.