TY - JOUR
T1 - A megastudy of text-based nudges encouraging patients to get vaccinated at an upcoming doctor's appointment
AU - Milkman, Katherine L.
AU - Patel, Mitesh S.
AU - Gandhi, Linnea
AU - Graci, Heather N.
AU - Gromet, Dena M.
AU - Ho, Hung
AU - Kay, Joseph S.
AU - Lee, Timothy W.
AU - Akinola, Modupe
AU - Beshears, John
AU - Bogard, Jonathan E.
AU - Buttenheim, Alison
AU - Chabris, Christopher F.
AU - Chapman, Gretchen B.
AU - Choi, James J.
AU - Dai, Hengchen
AU - Fox, Craig R.
AU - Goren, Amir
AU - Hilchey, Matthew D.
AU - Hmurovic, Jillian
AU - John, Leslie K.
AU - Karlan, Dean
AU - Kim, Melanie
AU - Laibson, David
AU - Lamberton, Cait
AU - Madrian, Brigitte C.
AU - Meyer, Michelle N.
AU - Modanu, Maria
AU - Nam, Jimin
AU - Rogers, Todd
AU - Rondina, Renante
AU - Saccardo, Silvia
AU - Shermohammed, Maheen
AU - Soman, Dilip
AU - Sparks, Jehan
AU - Warren, Caleb
AU - Weber, Megan
AU - Berman, Ron
AU - Evans, Chalanda N.
AU - Snider, Christopher K.
AU - Tsukayama, Eli
AU - Van den Bulte, Christophe
AU - Volpp, Kevin G.
AU - Duckworth, Angela L.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Many Americans fail to get life-saving vaccines each year, and the availability of a vaccine for COVID-19 makes the challenge of encouraging vaccination more urgent than ever. We present a large field experiment (N = 47,306) testing 19 nudges delivered to patients via text message and designed to boost adoption of the influenza vaccine. Our findings suggest that text messages sent prior to a primary care visit can boost vaccination rates by an average of 5%. Overall, interventions performed better when they were 1) framed as reminders to get flu shots that were already reserved for the patient and 2) congruent with the sort of communications patients expected to receive from their healthcare provider (i.e., not surprising, casual, or interactive). The best-performing intervention in our study reminded patients twice to get their flu shot at their upcoming doctor's appointment and indicated it was reserved for them. This successful script could be used as a template for campaigns to encourage the adoption of life-saving vaccines, including against COVID-19.
AB - Many Americans fail to get life-saving vaccines each year, and the availability of a vaccine for COVID-19 makes the challenge of encouraging vaccination more urgent than ever. We present a large field experiment (N = 47,306) testing 19 nudges delivered to patients via text message and designed to boost adoption of the influenza vaccine. Our findings suggest that text messages sent prior to a primary care visit can boost vaccination rates by an average of 5%. Overall, interventions performed better when they were 1) framed as reminders to get flu shots that were already reserved for the patient and 2) congruent with the sort of communications patients expected to receive from their healthcare provider (i.e., not surprising, casual, or interactive). The best-performing intervention in our study reminded patients twice to get their flu shot at their upcoming doctor's appointment and indicated it was reserved for them. This successful script could be used as a template for campaigns to encourage the adoption of life-saving vaccines, including against COVID-19.
KW - COVID-19
KW - Field experiment
KW - Influenza
KW - Nudge
KW - Vaccination
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85105148403
U2 - 10.1073/PNAS.2101165118
DO - 10.1073/PNAS.2101165118
M3 - Article
C2 - 33926993
AN - SCOPUS:85105148403
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 118
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
IS - 20
M1 - e2101165118
ER -