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Updated: May 14, 2026

Methodology for Establishing a Community-Wide Life Laboratory for Capturing Unobtrusive and Continuous Remote Activity and Health Data
Published on: July 27, 2018
Habit, custom, and power: a multi-level theory of population health
1Department of Health Policy and Management, Fielding School of Public Health, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1772, USA. fredzimmerman@ucla.edu
Abstract:
In multi-level theory, individual behavior flows from cognitive habits, either directly through social referencing, rules of thumb, or automatic behaviors; or indirectly through the shaping of rationality itself by framing or heuristics. Although behavior does not arise from individually rational optimization, it generally appears to be rational, because the cognitive habits that guide behavior evolve toward optimality. However, power imbalances shaped by particular social, political, and economic structures can distort this evolution, leading to individual behavior that fails to maximize individual or social well-being. Replacing the dominant rational-choice paradigm with a multi-level theoretical paradigm involving habit, custom, and power will enable public health to engage in rigorous new areas of research.
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