Invitation to Interdisciplinary Conference
Keynote addresses:
Dr. Theresa Marteau, Cambridge University
Dr. James Prochaska, University of Rhode Island
This 3-day conference on Catalina Island will feature cutting-edge research on successful habit change interventions. Lifestyle health risks are a major contributor to disease across the globe. Insufficient physical activity, alcohol overindulgence, tobacco use, and an unhealthy diet are primary health-damaging behaviors. In developing countries, additional health risks arise from inadequate sanitation practices.
Interventions designed to change these health behaviors have successfully increased people’s knowledge about health. Many interventions have also been successful at creating immediate, short-term behavior change. However, longer-term maintenance of healthy behaviors remains a challenge.
Interventions create enduring change by altering existing unhealthy habits and by creating new, healthy habits. The conference talks will address the psychological, social, and neurological factors involved in altering and forming new habits. Conference participants could come from a variety of disciplines, including health, psychology, computer science, consumer behavior, and economics. Speakers could present research using a variety of methods and types of data, ranging from laboratory experimental approaches, experience-sampling diary research, field experiments, simulations, and econometric models.
The conference is hosted by Profs. Wendy Wood and John Monterosso of the University of Southern California. The conference is supported by a generous grant from the Templeton Foundation. All conference costs on the island (except travel costs), will be covered for successful applicants. To apply, please submit a one-page description of your research, along with the name of your institution, your academic title and email address to Asaf Mazar at [email protected].
Graduate Students are welcome to submit an abstract, and if selected, will be invited to present a poster at the conference (registration fee waived for students). Deadline for submissions (for both graduate students and faculty) is April 20th, 2017. Earlier submissions are encouraged, as admissions will be made on a rolling basis.