MSc Health Psychology

For entry in the academic year beginning September 2027, the tuition fees are as follows:

• MSc (full-time)
  UK students (per annum): £13,800
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £35,300

The fees quoted above are fully inclusive of tuition, administration and computational costs.

Fees for entry are subject to yearly review. The University reserves the right to increase your tuition fee by up to 7% each year for courses lasting more than one year, including to reflect rising costs associated with delivering our educational and wider student experience. Postgraduate fees information .

Always contact the admissions team if you are unsure which fee applies to your qualification award and method of attendance.

International student CAS deposit

Self-funded international applicants are required to pay a deposit of £2500 towards their tuition fees before a confirmation of acceptance for studies (CAS) is issued. Some applicants will be required to pay a higher deposit. More information on tuition fee deposits .

All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).

This unit brings together the extensive literature on changing health-related behaviours, and considers the amount of evidence for currently popular approaches. The unit will consider the issues involved in developing interventions based on theory and evidence, and the different issues involved in interventions in clinical populations and "well" populations. It will consider the efficacy of several approaches, such as risk communication, targeting social cognitions, volitional strategies, and environmental interventions and consider how interventions are currently developed, evaluated and implemented. Throughout, the importance of both theory and evidence in developing and evaluating interventions will be emphasised, as well as the importance of bearing in mind issues relating to implementation of behaviour change interventions.  

The unit aims to:

• Provide an overview of current approaches to changing health-related behaviour at a number of levels, e.g. at individual level and at population level through changes to the physical and regulatory environment.
• Evaluate the level of evidence for efficacy and effectiveness of different approaches to health-related behaviour change, in relation to behaviour, population, and type of intervention.
• Critically evaluate several key theories of behaviour change, to highlight the merits and drawbacks of these approaches.
• Provide an understanding of the process of developing and evaluating interventions to change health-related behaviour, from epidemiological considerations, through consideration of theory and evidence, through to evaluation and implementation.

By the end of the course unit, students will be able to:

• Describe common approaches to changing health-related behaviour, and the merits and drawbacks of each.
• Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different levels of interventions.
• Critically evaluate strengths and weaknesses of commonly used behaviour change theories.
• Present verbally key issues in developing interventions to change health-related behaviour
• Understand the importance of theory, evidence and multidisciplinary working in developing and evaluating interventions to change health-related behaviours.

Teaching will be delivered in 11 x 2 hour weekly sessions which will usually involve a lecture and either seminar or group work. To assist in preparation for the sessions, students will be provided with electronic resources on Canvas including videos, tasks, Powerpoint slides, reading lists and web links.

Oral presentation assessing understanding and application of the topics covered during the taught sessions (worth 100%)

Essential reading:

• Rose, G. (with commentary by Kay-Tee Khaw, and Michael Marmot). Rose's Strategy of Preventive Medicine. Oxford University Press, 2008
• Glasgow, T.E., Vogt, T.M. & Boles, S.M. (1999). Evaluating the public health impact of health promotion interventions: The RE-AIM Framework. American Journal of Public Health, 89, 1322-1327.
• K Skivington, L Matthews, SA Simpson, P Craig, J Baird, JM Blazeby, KA Boyd, N Craig, DP French, E McIntosh, M Petticrew, J Rycroft-Malone, M White, & L Moore (2021).  A new framework for developing and evaluating complex interventions: Update of Medical Research Council guidance.  British Medical Journal 374; n2061.

Other reading:

• Michie S, Atkins L, West R. (2014) The Behaviour Change Wheel: A Guide to Designing Interventions. London: Silverback Publishing. www.behaviourchangewheel.com. 
• French, D., Vedhara, K., Kaptein, A.A. & Weinman, J. (eds, 2010), Health Psychology (second edition). Oxford: BPS Blackwell.
• Marteau, T.M., Hollands, G.J. & Fletcher, P.C. (2012). Changing human behavior to prevent disease: the importance of targeting automatic processes. Science, 337 (21 September 2012), 1492-1495.
• Diepeveen, S., Ling, T., Suhrcke, M., Roland, M. & Marteau, T.M. (2013). Public acceptability of government intervention to change health-related behaviours: a systematic review and narrative synthesis. BMC Public Health 13: 756.
• Hastings, G., Brooks, O., Stead, M., Angus, K., Anker, T., Farrell, T. (2010). Failure of self regulation of UK alcohol advertising. BMJ 340: B5650.
• Hollands, G.J., Shemilt, I., Marteau, T.M., Jebb, S.A., Kelly, M.P., Nakamura, R., Suhrcke, M. & Ogilvie, D. (2013). Altering micro-environments to change population health behaviour: towards an evidence base for choice architecture interventions. BMC Public Health, 13: 1218.
• Kok, G. & Schaalma, H. (2004). Using theory in psychological interventions. In S Michie & C Abraham (eds). Health Psychology in Practice. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Lally, P. & Gardner, B. (2013). Promoting habit formation. Health Psychology Review 7 (supplement 1), S137-S158.
• Michie, S., van Stralen, M.M. & West, R. (2011). The behaviour change wheel: A new method for characterising and designing behaviour change interventions. Implementation Science 6:42
• Conner, M. & Norman, P. (Eds) (2005), Predicting Health Behaviour (2nd edition), p 276-323. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.
• Armitage, C.J., Harris, P.R. & Arden, M.A. (2011). Evidence that self-affirmation reduces alcohol consumption: Randomized exploratory trial with a new, brief means of self-affirming. Health Psychology, 30, 633-641.
• Armitage, C.J. (2004). Evidence that implementation intentions reduce dietary fat intake: A randomized trial. Health Psychology, 23, 319-323.