Table 1.
Categorization of Social and Behavioral Sciences Team (SBST) and Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) Focus Areas
| Our categorization | Corresponding focus area in SBST 2015 Annual Report | Corresponding focus area in BIT 2013–2015 Update Report | Outcome variable of interest |
|---|---|---|---|
| Financial security in retirement | Promoting retirement security | Empowering consumersa | Retirement savings |
| Education | Improving college access and affordability | Education | College enrollment among recent high school graduates |
| Energy | N/A | Energy and sustainability | Energy consumption |
| Health | Helping families get health coverage and stay healthy | Health and well-being | Adult outpatient influenza vaccinations |
| Job training | Advancing economic opportunity | Economic growth and the labor market; skills and youth | Enrollment in job-training programsc |
| Program integrity and compliance | Promoting program integrity and compliance | Fraud, error, and debtb | Compliance with paying a required fee to the governmentc |
| Home affairs | N/A | Home affairs | Reducing crimes such as illegal migration, mobile-phone theft, and online exploitationc |
Note: Our list excluded the following SBST and BIT focus areas because they are not major areas of domestic policy for the U.S. government: ensuring cost-effective program operations (SBST), giving and social action (BIT), international development (BIT), and work with other governments (BIT).
We grouped this focus area with SBST’s focus area on promoting retirement security because its leading example concerned pensions. bWe grouped this focus area with SBST’s focus area on promoting program integrity and compliance because both focused on improving tax and fee collection. cFor these variables, the targeted behaviors were not studied in published research articles in leading academic journals from 2000 to mid-2015 (see Method for an explanation of our journal selection criteria), so we excluded these areas from our analysis.