ABSTRACT
One of the biggest challenges facing governments around the world is improving people's health while simultaneously controlling health expenditures that are now responsible for costs amounting to around US$7.2 trillion per year. This chapter offers a window into the opportunities and challenges that behavioral economics offers to address a wide spectrum of health behaviors. It discusses the promise of interventions using mobile health platforms, and how such programs represent the next generation approaches leveraging behavioral economics to combat the HIV epidemic in the US as well as developing countries. The chapter focuses on using behavioral economics to improve the health behaviors of individuals. It issues on both the individual and government level, and they range from personal behavior to government policies. It divides into three broad sections: Shaping Health Behaviors, Detecting and Managing Disease, and The Role of Providers, Insurers, and Government.
