1) The webinar discussed building the BESSI collaboration to address COVID-19 and future outbreaks through interdisciplinary behavioral, environmental, social and systems interventions (BESSI). 2) A survey of 50 participants from 18 countries found most worked in psychology, public health, and epidemiology and were interested in behavioral and systems interventions. 3) Building the collaboration will require identifying global members, building research capacity worldwide, engaging knowledge users, finding early successes and funding, and encouraging interdisciplinary work across communities. Governance structures and communication tools are also needed.

1. BESSI Webinar #1 2021
The Future of BESSI: Your Views
Behavioural, Environmental, Social and Systems Interventions
@BessiCollab #BESSItalk

2. What is BESSI? Principles
1. Ensure that research to develop, evaluate, and implement BESSIs are a key part of
the global preparedness/response to COVID-19 (and other outbreaks)
2. … interdisciplinary collaboration and partnership with relevant stakeholders, …
3. Conduct studies comparing different BESSIs ...
4. Use a variety of research methods … to large-scale randomized field studies
5. Ensure multi-country conduct of key BESSI research across diverse contexts
6. Develop complex BESSIs on careful specification of target behaviours, structures …
7. Give high priority to … most vulnerable to both transmission risks and harms.
URL: www.bessi-collab.net/ Twitter: @BessiCollab

3. DATABASE – 24 trials
Denmark - 2
Germany – 2
UK – 5
Ireland - 2
Norway - 1
Canada – 2
USA – 2
Brazil – 1
India – 1
Bangladesh – 1
Pakistan - 1
China - 1
Australia - 1
Guinea-Bissau – 1
MultiCountry - 1

4. BESSI JISCmail list has
155 members;
Twitter: 465 Followers
Liaison with other organisations

5. Webinar Outline
BRIEF Presentations (3 x 3 minutes)
1. How different disciplinary perspectives are needed: Mareike Schomerus
2. Where are we: Susan Michie
3. Building the collaboration: Jeremy Grimshaw
Discussion (30 minutes) Moderator: Mareike Schomerus
• What is the best way to build global community?
• Accessing funding - how can the BESSI community help each other?
• How can we make BESSI the best idea incubator?
• How do we future-proof BESSI?
What we heard today/Close (10 minutes): Susan Michie
• Summary of webinar to JISCmail list

6. BESSI Survey: Country of work
Country n
UK 11
Australia 10
Canada 9
Spain 2
USA 2
Israel 2
South Africa 2
Ireland 2
Belgium 1
• Total responders = 50; 18 countries
Country n
Chile 1
Sweden 1
Malawi 1
Nigeria 1
Finland 1
Lithuania 1
France 1
Turkey 1
Saudi Arabia 1

7. Academic discipline, profession, or
specialty
• Total responders = 42
Terms used n
Psychology 10
Public health 8
Epidemiology 7
Health psychology 7
Health services research 5
General practice 2
Implementation science 2
Terms used n
Organizational science 1
Building performance analysis 1
Environmental health science 1
Pharmacy 1
Emergency medicine 1
Patient partnerships in
healthcare research
1
Nursing 1
Sport psychology 1

8. BESSI elements
• Which BESSI elements are you involved or
interested in?
• Total responders = 34
BESSI element n (%)
Behavioural 21/34 (62)
Environmental 5/34 (15)
Social 7/34 (21)
Systems 16/34 (47)

9. Project areas
Other category:
- Mental health
- LMICs
- Targeting hard to reach groups
- Trade offs
- ‘Healthy’ buildings
- Ventilation

10. Building the Collaboration
• The success of BESSI will be determined by the
extent to which diverse individuals around the
world engage with and contribute to it
• Initial activities (eg webinars) have built upon
ideas of the core team but we are now looking
for input from all of you

11. Building the Collaboration
• How do we build the BESSI Collaboration?
– Identifying interested individuals globally
– How do we build capacity for BESSI research
globally
– How can we engage knowledge user audiences?

12. Building the Collaboration
• How do we build the BESSI Collaboration?
– What should be our initial focus (early wins)
– How do we identify relevant funding sources to
support BESSI research (and Collaboration)
– How do we encourage international and
interdisciplinary research in communities that may
not have previously worked together
– How could the BESSI Collaboration support you to
be successful in this area

13. Building the Collaboration
• How do we build the BESSI Collaboration (the
boring stuff)?
– What should be the overarching
structure/governance?
– What internal and external communication tools
should we use

14. Roles

15. Building the Collaboration
• What can you do to support/build the BESSI
Collaboration?