Barbara Riegel Named AHA 2015 Distinguished Scientist
Study Finds Continuing Decrease in Homeless Population
Simulated Driving Assessment (SDA) for teen drivers: results from a validation study
Catherine McDonald, Venk Kandadai, Helen Loeb, Thomas Seacrist, Yi-Ching Lee, Zachary Winston, Flaura Winston
In Injury Prevention, Catherine McDonald and colleagues, including Flaura Winston, evaluate the construct and criterion validity of the Simulated Driving Assessment (SDA). The SDA is a newly developed tool for novice teen drivers that incorporates 22 variations of the most common teen driver crashes. The authors compared the driving performance of inexperienced teens with experienced adult drivers. Their analysis shows a higher error score in teens than in adults, and that the error score derived from the SDA correlates with the score from a professional driving instructor. The...
Carrots and Sticks: Achieving High Healthcare Personnel Influenza Vaccination Rates without a Mandate
Marci Dreesa, Kathleen Wrotena, Mary Smedley, Tabe Masea, J. Sanford Schwartz
In Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, Marci Drees and colleagues, including J. Sanford Schwartz, evaluate the efficacy of implementing a multimodal campaign to increase influenza vaccination among healthcare personnel (HCP) without a mandate. The authors implemented an integrated multimodal approach incorporating peer pressure, accountability, and financial incentives to improve the HCP influenza vaccination rate. Employee compliance, vaccination, exemption and declination rates were compared with those of the seasons prior to the intervention. The authors find that...
Making Behavioral Economics a Routine Tool of Federal Agencies
Getting More Food-Allergic Young Adults To Carry Their Epinephrine: A Behavioral Economics Approach
As one of the estimated 2.5% of Americans with a food allergy, deciding my next meal, snack, or even beverage is no simple task. Remembering to carry emergency epinephrine is also no walk in the park. Young adults like me are particularly vulnerable to error related to their food allergies and likely to engage in risky behavior. And despite the risk of death by anaphylaxis, few individuals with severe food allergies carry their emergency epinephrine on a daily basis.
It's All in the Presentation
In the beginning (Web Site 1.0), we measured the success of health insurance marketplace sites by whether they worked. Last year (Web Site 2.0), technical glitches were resolved, and we can start to measure success by whether the sites help people make the best decisions in choosing a health plan.
Kevin Volpp Wins NIH Award for Behavioral Research
Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Related Public Service Advertisements and Their Influence on Parents
Amy Jordan, Amy Bleakley, Michael Hennessy, Sarah Vaala, Karen Glanz, Andrew Strasser
Cross-posted from the UPenn Prevention Research Center
In American Behavioral Scientist, Amy Jordan and colleagues, including Karen Glanz, use a novel experimental approach to identify the effectiveness of distinct persuasive strategies used in audiovisual (television-format) public service advertisements (PSAs) designed to encourage parents to reduce their children’s sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB)...
Can Behavioral Economics Help Fulfill The Promise of Managed Care?
I recently attended the AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting (ARM) thanks to the support of the Alice S. Hersh Scholarship and the Leonard Davis Institute (LDI). At the ARM, two themes stood out for me: the re-emergence of managed care as a vehicle for replacing volume with value, and behavioral economics.
LDI Poster Spotlight at AcademyHealth
Taking the Science of Financial Incentive Programs to a New Level: An Interview With Scott Halpern
Last week, Scott Halpern, Kevin Volpp and colleagues published a groundbreaking study in the NEJM demonstrating that financial incentives work in helping employees quit smoking, and that the design of the incentives matters.