Kaiser Colorado Flu Nudge

January 20, 2026 updated by: Michael Ho, Kaiser Permanente

Randomized Controlled Trial of Different Behavioral Text Messages to Improve Influenza Vaccination Rates

Influenza infection leads to significant morbidity and mortality each year. Influenza vaccines can reduce the risk of flu and the severity of flu illness, In addition, flu vaccinations can reduce flu complications such as pneumonia or worsening of chronic heart or lung disease. Each year, Kaiser Permanente of Colorado offers influenza vaccines to patients at no cost either at primary care clinic appointments or flu walk-in clinics in the fall prior to the upcoming flu season. In addition, as part of clinic appointment reminder text messages, there is a message to get the flu vaccine for patients who have not received the vaccine prior to the clinic visit. Building on these flu reminder text messages for patients who have not received a flu vaccine, this study will test different behavioral nudge text messages to improve influenza vaccination rates.

Study Overview

Status

Active, not recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

100000

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Colorado
      • Aurora, Colorado, United States, 80011
        • Institute for Health Research

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Child
  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Patients 6 months and older who have not received a flu shot at the time of their primary care clinic appointment reminder will be eligible to receive a flu vaccine reminder text message. For children <18 years of age, their caregiver will receive the text message

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Patients not eligible for flu vaccine

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Active Comparator: Generic text messages
Patients will receive the usual flu vaccine text message reminder
Behavioral: Behavioral economics framed test messaging
We will use positive framing and convenience framing as our 2 behavioral text messages to improve flu vaccination rates.
Experimental: Positively framed
Patients will receive a positively framed text message to get the flu vaccine
Behavioral: Behavioral economics framed test messaging
We will use positive framing and convenience framing as our 2 behavioral text messages to improve flu vaccination rates.
Experimental: Convenience framed
Patients will receive a convenience framed text message to get the flu vaccine
Behavioral: Behavioral economics framed test messaging
We will use positive framing and convenience framing as our 2 behavioral text messages to improve flu vaccination rates.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Receive flu vaccine
Time Frame: 12 weeks following receipt of first text message reminder
Did the patient receive a flu vaccine as denoted from the EMR. The vaccine could have occurred within Kaiser Permanente Colorado or outside of Kaiser Permanente Colorado and in which Kaiser received information about the flu vaccination during the flu season 2025-2026.
12 weeks following receipt of first text message reminder

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Time to flu vaccination
Time Frame: 12 weeks following receipt of 1st text message reminder
Time from primary care clinic visit that triggered the flu reminder text message and date of flu vaccination as denoted in the EMR.
12 weeks following receipt of 1st text message reminder

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Kaiser Permanente

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Michael Ho, MD, PhD, Kaiser Permanente

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

October 6, 2025

Primary Completion (Estimated)

June 1, 2026

Study Completion (Estimated)

September 1, 2026

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

October 1, 2025

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

January 20, 2026

First Posted (Actual)

January 28, 2026

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

January 28, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

January 20, 2026

Last Verified

January 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 2368690-1

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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