Incentives for Preventative Health Care: Increasing Completion of Health Risk Assessments

NCT00891111 | Completed

• 1 other identifier: CMUHS08613
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 634
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 8

Brief Summary

The purpose of this study is to understand using incentives to encourage employees to increase participation in an aspect of a corporate wellness program - filling out health risk assessments. This study will test whether lottery-linked incentives are more effective than guaranteed incentives in encouraging people to fill out health risk assessments. This study will be run in an employer setting in which rates of health risk assessment completion are suboptimal. This study would be conducted within a workplace setting in which the firm is divided into a number of geographically situated and functionally related subunits. The investigators will run a "complete your health risk assessment now!" program for 4 weeks. Each work unit will obtain a symbol. Every week, one symbol will be randomly drawn, publicly announced, and anyone in that work unit at the firm who has received their preventive screening would receive a $100 prize. In addition, if all of employees in that unit have completed their forms, then the prize will be increased to $125. The investigators expect this condition to result in greater compliance compared to a control condition in which employees would receive weekly reminders and a direct payment of a $25 gift card for completing the form at anytime during the 4 weeks of the study. This is analogous to direct payments that have been used by insurers to encourage completion of such forms in other contexts.

Conditions

Prevention

Keywords

Health Risk Assessment; Incentives; Preventative Healthcare; Encouraging Health Risk Assessments

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Percent of people in each condition who complete their health risk assessment

  4 weeks

Study Arms (2)

Direct Payment

EXPERIMENTAL

Direct Payment: Employees receive a $25 gift card upon completion of a Health Risk Assessment

Behavioral: Direct Payment

Regret Lottery

EXPERIMENTAL

Regret Lottery: Employees are divided into work units of about 5 employees. Employees in the lottery-linked incentive condition will be eligible for a weekly lottery drawing only if they have already completed their health risk assessment. The lotteries will work as follows. Participants will be assigned to work units of about 10 people. Each week, one work group is drawn at random. If a participants group was drawn and that participant already completed the health risk assessment, then that person will win a $100 cash prize. If all of the members of his or her work group also filled out the health risk assessment, then the prize will be boosted.

Behavioral: Regret Lottery

Interventions

Direct Payment BEHAVIORAL

$25 gift card given upon completion of Health Risk Assessment

Direct Payment

Regret Lottery BEHAVIORAL

Entered into a lottery upon completion of Health Risk Assessment

Regret Lottery

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years+
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: No
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• Full time employees

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Carnegie Mellon University: lead
• Yale University: collaborator
• University of Pennsylvania: collaborator

Study Sites (8)

Med3000

Shelton, Connecticut, United States

Location

Med 3000

Pensacola, Florida, United States

Location

Med3000

Tampa, Florida, United States

Location

Med3000

Tinley Park, Illinois, United States

Location

Med3000

Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States

Location

Med3000

Dayton, Ohio, United States

Location

Med3000

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

Location

Med3000

Dallas, Texas, United States

Location

Study Officials

• George Loewenstein, PhD

  Carnegie Mellon University

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: SINGLE
• Who Masked: PARTICIPANT
• Purpose: OTHER
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Professor

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: April 30, 2009
• First Posted: May 1, 2009
• Study Start: May 1, 2009
• Primary Completion: June 1, 2009
• Study Completion: June 1, 2009
• Last Updated: February 5, 2018

Record last verified: 2018-01

Locations

US (8)