
Selected winner: | Department of Health - Health Promotion Bureau (Philippines) in collaboration with AHA! Behavioral Design |
Solution name: | Address the Stress |
Origin of the winner: | Philippines |
The Department of Health - Health Promotion Bureau (HPB), the national lead office in-charge of health promotion policies, programmes and activities in the Philippines, has been accelerating the goals of health promotion through exercising multisectoral coordination, facilitating capacity development and fostering partnerships to make the healthy behavior the easier choice for everyone, every time, everywhere.
In 2020, The DOH-HPB partnered with AHA! Behavioral Design, the pioneer of Behavioral Design® in the Philippines and one of only two behavioural organizations in Southeast Asia. They use Applied Behavioral Science—specifically Behavioral Economics through Behavior Design® and Emotional Design Communication®—to embed culture-changing behaviours in communities and companies throughout the country.
Address the Stress
Address the Stress is a behavioural programme aimed at helping promote and improve the mental and emotional wellbeing of public health workers in the Philippines. Bolstering the existing communication campaigns of the Department of Health, the programme designed and tested minimally intrusive mental health nudges. These tools are grounded on widely-studied resilience strategies—such as breathing, grounding, and gratitude behaviors—and are based on the context and experiences of our frontliners.
To date, 26 public hospitals nationwide, with over 1500 healthcare workers, use the tools. And to help more healthcare workers, a programme playbook was created to make it easier for other hospitals to replicate and implement the programme in their own facilities seamlessly.
The Challenge winners are solely responsible for their contributions and views. They do not necessarily reflect those of WHO. In no event shall WHO be responsible for the accuracy of information shared by any of the participants. These solutions were judged for their merits as novel, creative solutions but no specific technology assessment was applied, nor any endorsement in practice should be implied.