Shifting to newer and better therapeutic options. Getting the most from patient-provider conversations. Adhering to lifesaving treatments. Making healthy lifestyle changes. All depend on people taking actions that aren’t always well-served by the forces that can block desired behaviors and keep suboptimal ones in place:

• • Competing priorities
  • Entrenched habits
  • Mental bandwidth limitations
  • Mismatches between people’s environments and their temperaments
  • And a set of mental adaptations that can bias judgments and decisions

. . .  All prey to social, contextual, and institutional factors that can unduly trigger and constrain.

These dynamics don’t just disrupt people’s ability to act on their best intentions; they also complicate efforts to accommodate, support, or help them change their behavior across a broad range of behavioral challenges and solutions types. And that's a problem whether the solutions entail:

• • Communications and campaigns that are supposed to make a difference in what people think and do
  • Behavior change products, such as health self-management apps, that are intended to meet people where they are to make them effective and easy to use
  • Omnichannel experiences that are meant to shift mindsets and put people's behavior on track toward improved decision-making or supporting healthier lives