A Randomized Trial of Social Comparison Feedback and Financial Incentives to Increase Physical Activity
Mitesh S Patel, Kevin G Volpp, Roy Rosin, Scarlett L Bellamy, Dylan S Small, Michele A Fletcher, Rosemary Osman-Koss, Jennifer L Brady, Nancy Haff, Samantha M Lee, Lisa Wesby, Karen Hoffer, David Shuttleworth, Devon H Taylor, Victoria Hilbert, Jingsan Zhu, Lin Yang, Xingmei Wang, David A Asch, Mitesh S Patel, Kevin G Volpp, Roy Rosin, Scarlett L Bellamy, Dylan S Small, Michele A Fletcher, Rosemary Osman-Koss, Jennifer L Brady, Nancy Haff, Samantha M Lee, Lisa Wesby, Karen Hoffer, David Shuttleworth, Devon H Taylor, Victoria Hilbert, Jingsan Zhu, Lin Yang, Xingmei Wang, David A Asch
Abstract
Purpose: To compare the effectiveness of different combinations of social comparison feedback and financial incentives to increase physical activity.
Design: Randomized trial (Clinicaltrials.gov number, NCT02030080).
Setting: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Participants: Two hundred eighty-six adults.
Interventions: Twenty-six weeks of weekly feedback on team performance compared to the 50th percentile (n = 100) or the 75th percentile (n = 64) and 13 weeks of weekly lottery-based financial incentive plus feedback on team performance compared to the 50th percentile (n = 80) or the 75th percentile (n = 44) followed by 13 weeks of only performance feedback.
Measures: Mean proportion of participant-days achieving the 7000-step goal during the 13-week intervention.
Analysis: Generalized linear mixed models adjusting for repeated measures and clustering by team.
Results: Compared to the 75th percentile without incentives during the intervention period, the mean proportion achieving the 7000-step goal was significantly greater for the 50th percentile with incentives group (0.45 vs 0.27, difference: 0.18, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.04 to 0.32; P = .012) but not for the 75th percentile with incentives group (0.38 vs 0.27, difference: 0.11, 95% CI: -0.05 to 0.27; P = .19) or the 50th percentile without incentives group (0.30 vs 0.27, difference: 0.03, 95% CI: -0.10 to 0.16; P = .67).
Conclusion: Social comparison to the 50th percentile with financial incentives was most effective for increasing physical activity.
Keywords: behavioral economics; connected health; financial incentives; performance feedback; physical activity; social comparison; teams.
Conflict of interest statement
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
© The Author(s) 2016.
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Source: PubMed