Kevin Volpp, New York Times, Behavioral Economics
On the Way to Health
This Issue Brief describes the development and use of a new web-based IT platform, Way to Health, to deliver and evaluate behavioral interventions to improve health.
“Buddy System” of Peer Mentors May Help Control Diabetes
This Issue Brief summarizes work testing two novel interventions—one-on-one peer mentoring (a “buddy system”) and financial incentives—designed to help patients with consistently poor diabetes control achieve better results. In this case, a telephone buddy makes a big difference.
Kevin Volpp, New York Times, Financial Incentives
Raina Merchant, MyHeartMap Contest
Kevin Volpp, Washington Post, Weight Loss Behavior
Behavioral Economics and Health Annual Symposium
The application of behavioral economics to health and health care has captured the imagination of policymakers across the political spectrum. The idea is that many people are irrational in predictable ways, and that this both contributes to unhealthy behaviors like smoking and holds one of the keys to changing those behaviors. Because health care costs continue to increase, and a substantial portion of costs are incurred because of unhealthy behaviors, employers and insurers have great interest in using financial incentives to change behaviors.
Kevin Volpp on GE's Anti-Smoking Incentives
Kevin Volpp and Happy Meals Apples
Scott Halpern Wins Alice S. Hersh Award
Kevin Volpp, MD, PhD highlighted in Philadelphia Inquirer on weight loss incentives study
Paying People to Lose Weight and Stop Smoking
This Issue Brief explores the use of financial incentives to motivate and sustain smoking cessation and weight loss.
Helping Smokers Quit Through Pharmacogenetics
This Issue Brief reviews ongoing work at Penn’s Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center (TTURC) to unravel the genetic factors that might affect smoking cessation and to develop more effective treatment strategies.