Participation in the 2026 Behavior Change Conference: Health & Sustainability (Behavior Change Conference 2026: Health & Sustainability) by Marco Vernooij, the Waal Foundation’s Director for Latin America, provided an opportunity to share experiences from Ecuador and Bolivia, exchange knowledge with international experts, and reflect on how to adapt behavior change models to the realities of Latin America.

What enables a person, a family, or a community to change a behavior? This question runs through the work of the de Waal Foundation and constitutes one of its main methodological pillars. From this perspective, participating in the 2026 Behavior Change Conference: Health & Sustainability, held June 17–19 in Lisbon, Portugal, presented an opportunity to share experiences developed at the local level and, at the same time, to learn from professionals and researchers working in different fields of behavior change.

Organized by the UCL Center for Behavior Change and the NOVA National School of Public Health, the conference brought together approximately 250 researchers, professionals, government representatives, multilateral organizations, and nongovernmental organizations from different regions of the world, with the aim of advancing the application of behavioral science to policies and programs.

From Research to Practice

Marco Vernooij, Director for Latin America at the De Waal Foundation, participated in this event by presenting two initiatives carried out in the region. One of these projects involved work carried out in the high-Andean communities of Salinas, Bolívar, Ecuador, as part of the “Salud y Páramo” project, developed in partnership with CONDESAN. The study was presented as a scientific poster under the title “Applying the C-COM Behavioral Model to Strengthen Sustainable Land Management and Health in High Andean Communities in Ecuador” (“Applying the COM-B Behavioral Model to Strengthen Sustainable Land Management and Health in High Andean Communities in Ecuador”).

The study presented the use of the C-COM model, known internationally as COM-B (Capability, Opportunity, Motivation–Behavior), to analyze the relationship between various factors and behaviors related to participation in tourism activities, consumption of healthy foods, access to sexual and reproductive health services, and participation in initiatives to protect water sources in Salinas de Guaranda, Ecuador.

The second case study presented was from Bolivia: “Application of the C-COM Model to Improve Adolescents’ Access to Sexual Health Care in Rural Areas of Bolivia” (Applying COM-B to Enhance Adolescent Sexual Health Access in Rural Bolivia), presented during a session dedicated to reproductive health and community health in global contexts. The presentation provided an opportunity to share how the C-COM/COM-B model to address adolescents’ access to sexual health services through the Comprehensive Differentiated Care Services for Adolescents (AIDA) in their territories, linking behavioral analysis with the conditions and specific characteristics of the Mizque communities in Bolivia. This experience thus contributed to a discussion of the various factors that influence access to services and how work with adolescents and communities can be guided.

For the de Waal Foundation, bringing these experiences to the conference meant sharing what happens when behavioral change models move from research to project implementation. “The core of what we want to do and achieve lies in changing behavior,” explains Marco.

In this process, it is also necessary to understand how the various levels involved in a behavior interact—from individuals and families to communities, health care providers, and national institutions. Exchanging experiences with others also made it possible to identify lessons that can enrich the implementation of projects in the regions.

One of the key lessons learned from participating in the conference concerned the way in which theoretical models are transformed when confronted with concrete realities. It is precisely in this dialogue between academia and local communities that the challenge arises of understanding how to put these models into practice, while recognizing the unique characteristics of each context.

C-COM/COM-B provides a framework for understanding the factors that influence behavior based on people’s capabilities, opportunities, and motivations. For the Waal Foundation, this tool can be used from the outset of a project as a way to assess the community and the group with which one will be working, understand the dynamics of a population, identify relationships between behaviors, and recognize potential entry points for generating positive change.

However, putting a model into practice also means recognizing its limitations and potential for adaptation. “The ideal is achieved in the conceptualization phase, while in practice everything can change. And that’s okay, because that’s what working with communities is all about: understanding the contexts and adapting the models accordingly,” Marco points out.

The implementation of the C-COM/COM-B model in local communities makes it possible to identify the opportunities, tensions, and adaptations that arise when a theoretical model is applied to specific community contexts in Latin America. This experience demonstrates how local realities provide new insights for understanding and addressing behavioral change in practice.

This means that interventions cannot be designed solely on the basis of theoretical reasoning. Experience in the field shows that behaviors are shaped by multiple factors: culture, community dynamics, living conditions, and the relationships that are formed in each context. This perspective provides insights that enrich the application of the model and allow for a better understanding of how behavioral change occurs in practice.

Based on this understanding, co-design with communities and partners becomes a key element in defining actions. It is not a matter of replicating the same response from one region to another, but rather of developing relevant strategies that address the characteristics and needs of each population.

This experience also leads the Waal Foundation to view behavioral change from a systemic perspective. Behaviors do not occur in isolation. One practice may be related to others and, in turn, be influenced by social, economic, cultural, or environmental factors. In the case of Salinas, for example, the research revealed connections between healthy eating, the protection of water sources, sexual and reproductive health, and economic activities such as agriculture, livestock farming, and tourism.

This perspective allows the C-COM/COM-B to be used not only as a tool for designing interventions, but also as a tool for diagnosing and understanding the context. Based on this interpretation, it may be possible to identify a specific behavior as a starting point, without losing sight of the system in which it occurs. Thus, the analysis can help determine where to intervene, which capacities need to be strengthened, what opportunities can be created, and what factors can help ensure that change is sustainable.

For the de Waal Foundation, this systemic perspective also opens up the possibility of developing new tools and instruments that enable efforts to change behavior in accordance with the characteristics of each project and region.

The event in Portugal also included a session dedicated to storytelling. On the day before the conference, the workshop “Storying Behavior Change: Designing Digital Stories with StoryHelper” was held, facilitated by Dr. Irina Catrinel Craciun.

For the de Waal Foundation, this space made it possible to connect two dimensions that can complement each other: understanding how behaviors occur and finding better ways to communicate processes of change. “Every outcome can be told through a story,” says Marco.

Storytelling provides a narrative structure that makes it possible to identify protagonists, obstacles, and processes of transformation. When applied to the fields of health and empowerment, it can help turn the lessons learned from projects into stories that connect with people and encourage reflection.

In this context, C-COM/COM-B can provide insights for crafting better stories. Understanding the capabilities, opportunities, and motivations that drive behavior allows us to better understand the dynamics of a community and, based on that, develop more relevant messages. “If you have a better understanding of the dynamics of communities and their residents, you can develop messages that bring about behavioral changes and, from there, build stories,” says Marco.

The goal, then, would not be to rely solely on personal accounts; rather, it is to use narrative structure to better convey messages, make them meaningful to those who receive them, and craft stories that support processes of positive change.

In this way, storytelling can become a tool that complements the Waal Foundation’s methodological work: data and insights provide an understanding of behavior, while stories help communicate it in a relatable, engaging, and culturally relevant way.

The participation of the De Waal Foundation also helped bring attention to initiatives carried out in Latin America within an international forum for the exchange of ideas between research and practice; of the 174 oral presentations and posters included in the program, seven addressed initiatives related to Latin America, covering work in Guatemala, Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, and Argentina. This represented approximately 4% of the presentations.

For Marco, this limited presence underscores the importance of ensuring that initiatives developed in the region are given greater prominence at these types of gatherings and can contribute to international knowledge about behavior change; therefore, behavioral science needs to engage more with Latin American realities and be rooted in the institutions and communities where projects are implemented.

Rigorous methods for understanding and promoting behavioral change must be practical, participatory, and adaptable. From this perspective, behavioral science can serve as a bridge between fields such as health, climate, resilience, and local development. For the de Waal Foundation, bringing these experiences to the international stage helps strengthen that dialogue: learning from research and other experiences, sharing lessons learned on the ground, and continuing to explore how to adapt these tools to the realities of communities.

Participation in the Behavior Change Conference 2026: Health & Sustainability thus prompts reflection that goes beyond the mere application of a model. It is about maintaining an ongoing dialogue between theory, practice, and the local context: using the available tools, observing how they work in specific contexts, recognizing what needs to be adapted and learning from the communities themselves, and also finding new ways to share those lessons.