Activating Behaviour Change In Asbestos Safety At Home
In the interests of increasing asbestos safety during home maintenance and renovations, the NSW Environment Protection Authority engaged Heartward Strategic to support the development of effective behaviour change interventions. Asbestos is a naturally occurring silicate mineral that was mined and used in building materials extensively in Australia from the 1940s until the late 1980s. Asbestos containing materials pose an ongoing risk to community and environmental health and safety, as asbestos fibres are known to cause respiratory diseases, including cancer.
“The challenge was understanding why people behaved unsafely when faced with risk and how to support them to protect themselves, others and the environment.”
A program of social research was needed to provide guidance on how to increase safe and lawful behaviour in residential housing maintenance and renovation situations. The multi-staged program designed and delivered by Heartward incorporated participatory, exploratory, and measurement research methods among a wide range of relevant stakeholders. This included an online quantitative survey of several thousand members of the NSW community, and affinity group discussions and extended narrative interviews with more than 100 individuals from key audiences including renovators and people having discovered asbestos at home, building professionals, paid and unpaid handypeople, and people affected by asbestos-related disease.
From the outset, the value of the research rested in its ability to provide sound strategic guidance on how to change behaviour. This required pairing excellence in market research approaches and skills, with experience and creativity in using behaviour change frameworks. A well-validated behaviour change model was applied to this research to provide a systematic method of informing intervention design.
While the core need for this engagement was for social research, Heartward paired this with strategic guidance regarding communications, customer service and channel strategy, to deliver clear direction on how to respond to this significant challenge for the community and the environment. Behaviour change interventions built on these insights are in development.