The untapped potential of unobtrusive observation for studying health behaviours (Preprint)

UNSTRUCTURED Improving the environment is an important upstream intervention to promote population health by influencing behaviours such as physical activity, smoking and social distancing. Examples of promising environmental interventions include creating new green spaces, building active transport infrastructure and urban planning regulation. However, there is little robust evidence to inform policy and decision makers about what kinds of environmental interventions are effective and for which populations. In this viewpoint, we make the case that this evidence gap is partly because health behaviour research is dominated by obtrusive methods that focus on studying how individuals behave, and which ignore environmental influences. By contrast, unobtrusive observation can assess how behaviour varies by environmental features. It thereby provides valuable data relating to environmental influences on behaviour, which is often more useful knowledge. These observation methods are currently under-used because considerable time, labour and cost is needed for in-person observers. We discuss how developing the use of video technology can provide a scalable, easily deployable solution for assessing health behaviours, and allow a more thorough investigation of how environments influence behaviour.