Behavioural Insight Exchange: Smokefree - Routine & Manual Workers
Scroll to the bottom to find out which public-health habit was voted into Room 101 π
A huge thank you to everyone that joined the first Behavioural Insight Exchange - Room 101 style today
Hosted by Hidden Voices Heard in partnership with local authorities across the South West, we explored one of the most complex and nuanced challenges in public health - how to support routine and manual workers on the journey to a smoke-free life.
Many thanks to the incredible guest speakers Daniel Preece (Plymouth City Council), Claire Tatton (Torbay Council) and Dr Nikita Rowley (behavioural science researcher).
The session combined deep listening, data, and a dash of humour and it is definitely worth watching. But here is a quick summary:
Plymouth: Rethinking “the service”
Daniel Preece kicked off by dismantling the idea of a traditional stop-smoking service and reframing smoking as a social behaviour that lives in a social world. His team’s behavioural deep dive uncovered three insights:
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Quitting feels all-or-nothing. People want smaller, more doable steps, not perfection.
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Autonomy drives engagement. Many want to stay in control rather than hand power to a service.
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Vaping divides opinion. For some it’s “easy, cheap and popular”; for others, uncertain or stigmatised.
Plymouth’s new no-strings-attached vape offer is now giving people choice and agency without the bureaucracy.
Room 101 nominee: The phrase “We don’t yet know the long-term effects of vaping.”
Dan argued it breeds confusion and would replace it with: “Vaping with nicotine liquid is a lot less risky than smoking tobacco.”
Torbay: My Habit, My Quit
Claire Tatton brought the Torbay coastline to life, postcard-pretty, yet marked by deep inequality and seasonal work. Her insights revealed:
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“My habit, my quit.” People saw quitting as a personal responsibility, not a service need.
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“What’s in it for me?” Traditional offers often failed to resonate or feel relevant.
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Smoking helps me breathe. For many, it was less about nicotine and more about calm and connection.
Torbay is now shifting from service promotion to offer exploration, using community networks, social ads, and peer-based projects that let people quit on their own terms.
Room 101 nominee: The referral form.
In Claire’s words, “Nothing kills motivation faster than a form.”
From the Literature: Evidence with Empathy
Dr Nikita Rowley wrapped up with a reminder that good insight starts with good evidence. Nikita has run many routine & manual worker literature reviews for Hidden Voices heard and her practical guide to running an effective literature review included:
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Begin with PICO – Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome.
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Use behavioural frameworks like COM-B and TDF to guide searches.
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Combine academic and grey literature to capture post-COVID realities.
Her Room 101 choice? Poorly described interventions - those vague studies that say “participants received behavioural support” without saying what that actually means.
And the Room 101 Winner…
The Referral Form - officially consigned to public-health history.
Contact For More information
To get the slides or just to talk how you can adopt a behaviour change approach to increasing access to your smokefree services connect with Ruth via the link below. Even if you have done your surveys or field work it is still worth pausing to review it through a behavioural lens.
Click the name 'Ruth' and it takes you to the online diary or email [email protected]
Book a conversation with Ruth here: