O Speaker: Junghwan Park(Deputy Director)

O Affiliation: Division of Health Industry Policy, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Republic of Korea

O Date: May 14, 2025

O Start Time: 4:00 PM

ABSTRACT:

Health behavior covers the range of behaviors that may impact an individual’s health, while behavior interventions refer to structured strategies designed to encourage and sustain positive changes in these behaviors. As digital technologies advance, digital health offers potential to deliver scalable, accessible, and personalized interventions that can reach diverse populations and adapt to evolving needs. In this presentation, how optimization trials—particularly those incorporating specific techniques such as microrandomization—enable the refinement and personalization of digital behavior change interventions (DBCIs) will be discussed, using an example of a walk promotion app. By randomizing intervention components including prompts, timing, or synthesizing algorithms multiple times per day, microrandomization uncovers which specific combination of intervention components works best for whom, under which circumstances, and at what time. This high-frequency feedback loop is essential in addressing the perspective that context matters, things change, and people are different. A brief overview of the relevant approaches, illustrating how even a simplified application of the engineering-inspired methods can model short-erm behavioral shifts will be provided. Together, these techniques provide a robust framework for designing DBCIs that are both adaptive and individualized.

Finally, I will briefly highlight how these methodological advances can inform future policy recommendations for the Korean government—by offering evidence-based insights on highly individualized—to achieve population-level efficacious behavioral intervention. Attendees will gain an understanding of how iterative optimization and real-time data analytics can drive next-generation DBCIs that effectively accommodate the changing, context-dependent, and idiographic nature of health behavior at a policy level.

* The seminar will be held offline and online[https://kaist.zoom.us/j/86770940131] simultaneously.

* Closed Caption interpretation service (English) available online (service provided by Zoom)