ideas42

We apply behavioral science breakthroughs and insights to global health programs to amplify impact and advance positive change. Our goal is to transform global health practice to improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people worldwide with a focus on women and children under 5 years old in low- and middle-income countries.

In the U.S, we apply behavioral science to some of the toughest problems in the healthcare system: low and high-value care, chronic diseases such as diabetes and obesity, public health crises like vaccination and opioid use, healthy aging, and bias in care and algorithms. Ultimately, we envision a future where a healthy and dignified life is attainable and affordable for all, individuals and providers alike.

Earning a college degree is one of the best paths available to a secure economic future. But across the United States, too many people who want to earn a college degree are either not enrolling, or are enrolling but failing to graduate. Behavioral science research has revealed a number of subtle, sometimes surprising factors that can interfere with college enrollment, persistence, and completion.

In close partnership with colleges, universities, college success non-profits, foundations, and others, ideas42 works to identify these factors and design behaviorally-informed interventions to address them. Over the past 10 years, we’ve worked on more than 55 projects aimed at helping students persist through their postsecondary journey.

In the legal system, the smallest of mistakes — such as accidentally missing court or inability to pay a fine — can have outsized impacts on people’s freedom, livelihoods, and well-being. This is especially true for those most experiencing poverty, systemic racism, and/or violence.

Our Safety & Justice team uses rigorous research and inventive behavioral design to improve outcomes (and prevent negative outcomes) in the legal system. We work directly with courts, police, probation and parole, district attorneys and public defenders, community organizations, and mayors’ offices to bring about positive change. This is done in partnership with communities, civil rights groups, action networks, and other researchers. We aim to reduce the harms of our current system in the U.S. while helping to build a more fair, dignified, and equitable one.

Maximizing the impact of existing and new global livelihoods and humanitarian efforts using insights from behavioral science can help improve life for millions in contexts of extreme poverty or instability around the world. Living in such contexts forces people to make tough trade-offs every day, in turn making it difficult to improve their well-being and long-term economic prospects. This can include: sending children to work instead of school, spending time on income-generating work rather than vocational training programs, and meeting immediate consumption needs at the expense of protection, health, or other long-term priorities.
Using behavioral insights to redesign the delivery of global anti-poverty and humanitarian programs will give millions the slack needed to minimize such trade-offs, maximizing program effectiveness and providing participants with tools to improve their economic well-being as they see fit.

In the United States, engagement in civic life is low and does not reflect the diverse makeup of the country as a whole. This leads to distorted policies, weakened accountability structures, and a government that fails to equitably serve all the people it represents. At ideas42, we’re using our expertise in behavioral science to design and apply innovations that make voting easier and more deeply meaningful for everyone. By removing the most pernicious barriers to participation, we can create a vibrant American democracy that equitably empowers and safeguards all eligible voters, build a broad electorate that mirrors the diversity of the country as a whole, and bring about a government that is accountable at every level to the true will of the people.

Through our Financial Health work, we envision a world where financial products, services, and programs are behaviorally-informed, and designed to meet the needs of people of all socio-economic statuses, ages, races, and genders so that they can have a financially secure present and a self-determined future.