Defining healthstyles to plan behavior change interventions in representative samples of children and adults

ABSTRACT

Based on Michie’s COM-B model, we developed a survey methodology and segmentation procedure to identify groups of Hungarian school children and adults with distinctive characteristics, named healthstyles. We aimed to find interventions fitting to each healthstyle to generate behavioural change. For the segmentation of data, the latent class analysis method was applied. The analysis resulted in 8 healthstyles for the school children and 13 for the adults. Each healthstyle possess distinctive ‘traits’ and, therefore, special behavioural change methods and prevention strategies can be fitted for them. For demonstrating the advantages of using healthstyles, we discuss possible approaches for selecting behavioural change interventions, one for school children and one for adults.

KEYWORDS:

• Healthstyles
• COM-B
• behavioural change
• segmentation

Compliance with ethical standards

Conflict of interest On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author confirms that there are no conflict of interests. Informed consent Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Supplementary material

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.