Personal financial incentives can change habitual health-related behaviors and help reduce health inequalities .
However , their role in reducing disease burden is potentially limited given current evidence that effects dissipate beyond three months post-incentive removal
OBJECTIVES Uncertainty remains about whether personal financial incentives could achieve sustained changes in health-related behaviors that would reduce the fast-growing global non-communicable disease burden .
This review aims to estimate whether : i. financial incentives achieve sustained changes in smoking , eating , alcohol consumption and physical activity ; ii .
effectiveness is modified by ( a ) the target behavior , ( b ) incentive value and attainment certainty , ( c ) recipients ' deprivation level .
Correspondence programs for smoking cessation and weight control: a comparison of two strategies in the Minnesota Heart Health Program.
Mailed invitations to participate in weight loss and /or smoking cessation correspondence programs to 31,400 households in a suburban community . Two programs were offered to r and omized subsets of households , a 6-month correspondence program costing + 5 and the same program for free but requiring a + 60 deposit to be refunded based on success in weight loss or smoking cessation . Overall , sign-up included 1,304 people for weight loss and 142 for smoking cessation . The + 5 program was about 5 times as popular as the incentive program .  Vali date d weight change after 6 months averaged about 4 lb for the + 5 program and 8 lb for the incentive program . Corresponding rates of smoking cessation were about 9 % and 20 % , respectively . We conclude that correspondence programs for the promotion of weight control and smoking cessation are potentially cost-effective methods for reaching individuals in the community at large , many of whom would not be interested in clinic-based programs . Issues meriting further research include recruitment , especially of smokers , and evaluation of the relative trade-offs in recruitment success versus efficacy of differing treatment approaches
Personal financial incentives can change habitual health-related behaviors and help reduce health inequalities .
However , their role in reducing disease burden is potentially limited given current evidence that effects dissipate beyond three months post-incentive removal
OBJECTIVES Uncertainty remains about whether personal financial incentives could achieve sustained changes in health-related behaviors that would reduce the fast-growing global non-communicable disease burden .
This review aims to estimate whether : i. financial incentives achieve sustained changes in smoking , eating , alcohol consumption and physical activity ; ii .
effectiveness is modified by ( a ) the target behavior , ( b ) incentive value and attainment certainty , ( c ) recipients ' deprivation level .