“Public decision-makers must be able to initiate the necessary progress by raising support rather than rebellion”

En replacing the Covid-19 scientific council, on September 29 the government appointed a committee for monitoring and anticipating health risks: fifteen scientific personalities, mainly specialists in biomedical disciplines, clinicians and epidemiologists. Almost no social and behavioral scientists or public health researchers.

This shows that not much has been learned from the Covid-19 crisis. One of the major difficulties encountered by our societies during the pandemic was the analysis of behavior: understanding adherence to health instructions, knowing how to help populations whose mental health is deteriorating, etc. In the same way, we cannot anticipate health risks without questioning the societal springs of these risks.

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This observation can be generalized, because behaviors are by definition… everywhere. This is obviously the case for the ecological and energy transition. The power does not anticipate social movements and does not seem more able to unite populations around reasonable plans for transforming our lives – sobriety cannot be decreed, nor the love of wind turbines.

A happy dynamic

In all these crucial areas of our existence – the environment, health, the economy – public decision-makers must nevertheless try to influence behavior in the short or long term and initiate the necessary progress by raising the support than the sling, creating a happy dynamic more than waves of depression.

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To do this, and rather than signing contracts with overpriced consulting firms that are not necessarily their job, our leaders could more systematically surround themselves with academics – be they expert economists in impact assessment or behavioral economics, researchers in psychology, neurosciences and cognitive sciences, specialists in intervention methods in public health or other fields of social sciences. And also give them the means to work, for example by allowing researchers more frequently to be on long-term availability for ministry interventions, as is the case in the United States.

There is progress, of course. Some ministries have adopted public policy evaluation practices, for example at the Department of Studies of the Ministry of Labor (Dares). Effective partnerships with universities make it possible to determine the effectiveness of programs – such as the Youth Guarantee – on the expected behavioral effect (participation in the program, return to work, etc.).

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