The Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) and Adherence Research Network at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are hosting a series of workshops titled An Action Agenda: Promoting the Science and Practice of Health Behavior Maintenance. The goal of this workshop series is to develop a more complete understanding of health behavior maintenance to promote and sustain health outcomes. The workshops build on prior work undertaken by OBSSR and the NIH Health Maintenance Consortium to identify the processes, components, and contextual factors influencing health behavior maintenance.

Workshop 1, held in spring 2023, focused on Conceptualization of Behavior Maintenance. The next two workshops in the series will focus on criteria and tools for measuring behavioral maintenance (Workshop 2) and intervention designs to promote and understand behavioral maintenance (Workshop 3). The final workshop in the series (Workshop 4) will focus on implementation of best practices in clinical setting. Workshop 4 will take place in early 2024. You will have the option to opt in to receive more information regarding this workshop during the registration process for Workshops 2 and 3.

Workshops 2 and 3 will be fully virtual and are open to the general public to attend. Interested individuals are welcome to register for one or both days. Please register for each day you would like to attend: Wednesday September 20; Friday September 22; or both.

Workshop 2 – Measurement and Monitoring of Behavior Maintenance
Wednesday, September 20, 2023
11:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. EDT

Workshop 2 will describe the state of the science regarding the criteria and tools that are used to conceptualize and assess behavioral maintenance behaviors across disease contexts and populations. The first half of Workshop 2 will focus on how behavior maintenance is defined across various exemplar behaviors, including how changes in patterns of behavior are conceptualized and the criteria used to identify whether someone has reached maintenance and whether someone has or has not successfully sustained maintenance. Presentations will be followed by a discussion of synergies, points of potential disconnect, and commonalities across behaviors. The second half of the workshop will highlight innovative tools and methodologies that have been developed and tested to measure and monitor behavior maintenance in daily life and across contexts.

Workshop 3 – Interventions for Behavior Maintenance
Friday, September 22, 2023
11:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. EDT

Workshop 3 aims to share the state of the science for interventions to promote behavior maintenance across behaviors, disease contexts, and populations, emphasizing innovative approaches to support and understand maintenance behaviors and processes in the context of intervention research. Particular attention will be given to addressing health equity and disparities in intervention development. The first half of Workshop 3 will highlight example interventions for promoting behavior maintenance. While the focus of this workshop is person-based interventions to promote behavior maintenance, examples also will explore the relative effects of multilevel interventions. The second half of the workshop will include a panel discussion highlighting gaps and opportunities to advance understanding of behavior maintenance in behavioral interventions.

On Behalf of the NIH Health Behavior Maintenance Workshop Committee:

Workshop Co-Chairs
Alexander Rothman, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology University of Minnesota	Anne Peters, M.D. Professor of Medicine Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California

NIH Workshop Co-Leads
Deborah Young-Hyman, Ph.D. Health Scientist Administrator Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research	Michael Stirratt, Ph.D. Senior Behavioral Scientist, Adherence to Treatment and Prevention National Institute of Mental Health
Sydney O’Connor, Ph.D. Health Scientist Administrator Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research	Maureen Monaghan Center, Ph.D. Program Director, Diabetes Behavioral Science National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases

If you have questions about the workshop series, contact any one of the NIH workshop Co-Leads.