Health interventions

A health intervention is an effort to promote good health behaviour such as physical exercise or to prevent bad health behaviours, e.g. promoting tobacco smoking cessation or discouraging the use of illicit drugs or excessive drinking.

Health interventions may be run by a variety of organizations, including health departments and private organizations. Such interventions can have a variety of forms (e.g. websites, short movies or 'commercials', posters, protocols for counseling sessions, or plans to persuade key actors to enact changes in the environment, for example by decreasing the offer of unhealthy food at schools), and often consist of a combination of Behavior Change Methods that target specific psychological determinants or environmental conditions for behavior. Several systematic protocols exist to assist developing such interventions, one of the most well-known being Intervention Mapping.

In recent years various forms of intervention involving family and friends have been developed and used to encourage people with self-destructive behaviors or addictions to accept help. This started with the Johnson Intervention in the 1960s. Since then several variations on this basic methodology have been developed, each with its advantages and disadvantages.