Behavioral science
Clinical psychology and public-health methods applied to live programs, not lab demos.
For teams whose program is live and still not changing behavior
If people know what they should do and still don’t do it
Public Behaviour Lab works with government and public health teams when the program exists, the message is clear, and the behavior still doesn’t move.
PhD, Clinical PsychologyMPH, Johns HopkinsFormer National Cancer InstituteFellow, Society of Behavioral Medicine
About
Dr. Erik Augustson, PhD, MPH
If you need someone who has run a federal program at scale — not only advised one — this is the practice.
Former National Cancer Institute. Directed the Smokefree.gov Initiative from 2003 to 2018 — a federal mHealth program across web, text, apps, and social, reaching millions of smokers each year.
He is a clinical psychologist and public health scientist. PhD in Clinical Psychology, MPH in Epidemiology from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He has advised national and global public health efforts, including work with the World Health Organization.
Today he works with government and mission-driven teams through Augustson Consulting LLC and Public Behaviour Lab, from San Francisco.
Skills
What the practice actually does
mHealth and digital delivery
Web, text, apps, and social interventions at federal scale, including Smokefree.gov.
Implementation
Standing up behavior-change systems inside government constraints, not slide decks.
Evaluation and learning
Simple ways to test whether people actually use the intervention after launch.
Federal program leadership
Twenty years directing national initiatives inside NCI and HHS.
Health communication
Plain-language programs and campaigns people can act on.
Services
Work that sits inside real programs, not beside them
If the work is sitting in a deck instead of in the live system, this is the work.
1
Behavioral diagnostics
If uptake is low and no one can say why
Understand why a policy, program, or digital service is not producing the intended behavior — the friction, the incentives, and the real constraints.
2
Intervention design
If the intervention is evidence-based and unused
Turn evidence into practical changes in communications, services, and choice architecture that people can actually use.
3
Implementation support
If the team has the science and not the operating version
Help public-sector teams put behavioral approaches into live systems, not slide decks.
4
Evaluation and learning
If you need to know whether people actually used it after launch
Build simple ways to test what works after launch and refine from the data, not the pitch.
Approach
Three steps. No hidden fourth.
If you need a partner inside the program, not another framework, this is the sequence.
1
Diagnostic review
We start by understanding why the program, policy, or service is not landing — reviewing data, talking to users, and mapping the friction holding engagement back.
2
Collaborative design
We work with your team to turn those findings into practical changes in messaging, service delivery, or choice architecture, built for real constraints.
3
Implementation and learning
We help put the intervention into the live system, measure whether people actually use it, and refine based on what the data shows.
Contact
If a policy, program, or service depends on behavior change and it isn’t landing — start here
Direct email Eaugusts@hotmail.com. San Francisco.