Perspectives on the formation of the Public Health Agency of Canada’s Office of Behavioural Science

You know that Bambi GIF?

The one of Bambi, with long bony legs splayed in four different directions, struggling to stand on a frozen pond? It has come to mind a few times over the past year: During the first skate on the canal in Ottawa, trying to stand-up paddle board for the first time, and this fall, helping to set up the new Office of Behavioural Science (BeSciO) at the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC).

BeSciO Vision Statement: Ensuring that behavioural science evidence is fully translated and integrated across policy, communication, and programming interventions supporting PHAC’s revitalization as a world leading, data-driven public health organization.

We are Tyler Good and Sarah Wall, two Impact Canada Fellows working in close collaboration with BeSciO. In April 2021, the President of PHAC approved the establishment of the Office of Behavioural Science (BeSciO) to act as a centralized hub that provides expertise and helps build capacity and community for behavioural science (BeSci) throughout the Agency. BeSci has been used within teams across PHAC for years, but the valuable ways that it contributed to the COVID-19 pandemic response demonstrated the need for a central office. You can read more about how the Fellowship program supported the pandemic response in this blog post and by checking out our project timeline.

Tyler Good: I joined BeSciO in June 2021, the fourth employee in the door. In these early days, our favourite way to describe how things were going was to say that we were building the plane while flying it. I have never worked at a start-up, but I think BeSciO probably resembled one. We were a small team trying to make progress on lots of different fronts, so this was a fantastic opportunity for me to see how decisions are made and teams are built in the federal public service. Some highlights included responding to rapid review requests about COVID-19, supporting longer-term COVID-19 related research projects lead by my peers embedded within other teams at PHAC, and participating in our first project scoping exercise by identifying and engaging teams across PHAC to develop relationships and prioritize research opportunities.

Sarah Wall: I joined PHAC in March 2021 as one of the Fellows who was embedded into program areas on the frontlines of the pandemic response. In October 2021, we were brought into BeSciO to continue to formalize our presence and processes within PHAC, broaden our partnerships to other areas of public health, all while still supporting our original host program areas as clients. It has been a unique and rewarding experience to be a part of the initial BeSciO team. I have been able to directly apply my lessons learned, maintain and expand my networks of colleagues, and further develop as a BeSci Practitioner. Some highlights include leading a study related to public health measures, writing a report on how BeSci can inform communications during COVID-19, developing a BeSciO playbook, advising on several communication campaigns and public health education products, and providing support to our CPHO.

We have learned a lot in these early days at BeSciO. We’ve watched our Manager and Director make strategic decisions when working with partners and establishing team culture. We’ve participated in meetings where we introduced BeSciO to other teams within PHAC, which required us to first identify how we might be able to contribute and then communicate that effectively. It was sometimes awkward (think Bambi) and not every conversation led to a collaboration, but it was an invaluable experience to learn more about the excellent work done by teams throughout PHAC. We benefited from staying connected with our colleagues at Impact Canada during this time and our office benefitted from our mutual partnership, and leveraging their existing BeSci infrastructure and expertise. The experience bucked (Bambi pun intended) a lot of our expectations about the operation of the federal public service: We worked quickly and flexibly and we were consistently pleased to find others at PHAC keen to hear about how they might adapt their work to apply principles of BeSci.

Today, BeSciO consists of 19 team members (five fellows) engaged in several different activities. Each of us is responsible for a substantive, longer-term research project. These are done in collaboration with teams at PHAC with subject-matter expertise and focus on topics like mental health literacy, adherence to public health measures, and promotion of antimicrobial stewardship. We also get to help with several side-of-desk tasks like helping with rapid review requests on urgent projects led by other folks at PHAC, developing onboarding materials for incoming Fellows, and creating frameworks and knowledge products like white papers and playbooks for the office.

We’re still maturing our practice at BeSciO. Much of our work is still driven by the pandemic and we are still building some program fundamentals. But as we look ahead, it’s exciting to see the signs of a fully formed BeSci program emerging. It has been a wild ride and we feel privileged to be a small part of it.