Swiss Francs Seem to Make Insured Move: Comparing Daily and Monthly Financial Incentives of a Scalable Digital Health Intervention

Gisbert W. Teepe, Tobias Kowatsch, Tobias Kowatsch

2020

Abstract

Despite the widely known necessity to counteract the increase in physical inactivity, only small strides have been achieved so far. Digital health interventions (DHIs) are proposed to reach both healthy and at-risk populations on a large scale. However, designing scalable DHIs that are engaging in the long term remains a challenge. Small financial incentives may help to achieve such long-lasting behaviour changes. This work thusly investigates the effects of daily or monthly paid small financial incentives on step counts and goal achievements in physical activity. Six-month observational field data of a physical activity DHI (PADHI), offered by a Swiss health insurer, was used for this investigation. From 1623 contacted customers, 742 (45.7%) joined the PADHI. Step counts and times the challenging goal was reached were significantly higher in the condition of daily paid incentives. The findings from objectively measure daily step counts and goal achievements indicate better outcomes when incentives are paid daily. Further findings indicate the importance of recording various physical activities and not only step counts.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Teepe G. and Kowatsch T. (2020). Swiss Francs Seem to Make Insured Move: Comparing Daily and Monthly Financial Incentives of a Scalable Digital Health Intervention. In Proceedings of the 13th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies - Volume 5: Scale-IT-up, ISBN 978-989-758-398-8, pages 827-833. DOI: 10.5220/0009396308270833

in Bibtex Style

@conference{scale-it-up20,
author={Gisbert Teepe and Tobias Kowatsch},
title={Swiss Francs Seem to Make Insured Move: Comparing Daily and Monthly Financial Incentives of a Scalable Digital Health Intervention},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 13th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies - Volume 5: Scale-IT-up,},
year={2020},
pages={827-833},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0009396308270833},
isbn={978-989-758-398-8},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 13th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies - Volume 5: Scale-IT-up,
TI - Swiss Francs Seem to Make Insured Move: Comparing Daily and Monthly Financial Incentives of a Scalable Digital Health Intervention
SN - 978-989-758-398-8
AU - Teepe G.
AU - Kowatsch T.
PY - 2020
SP - 827
EP - 833
DO - 10.5220/0009396308270833