Financial Incentives for Increasing Exercise

Obesity Clinical Trial

Official title:

A Randomized Controlled Trial of Financial Incentives for Increasing Exercise

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Withdrawn

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT01043757
• Other study ID #: HBS-MN01
• Status: Withdrawn
• Phase: N/A
• First received: January 6, 2010
• Last updated: June 23, 2015
• Start date: January 2010
• Est. completion date: October 2013

Study information

• Verified date: January 2010
• Source: Harvard University
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Health authority: United States: Institutional Review Board
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

Participants will be employees of Genzyme who volunteer to participate in a study on motivating healthy behaviors, involving giving them goals for taking a certain number of steps per day, and increasing that number over time. Participants will wear pedometers and upload their data to a website that allows them to monitor their progress, and have the opportunity to win money based on meeting their step goals.

Interested employees will schedule a day and time to complete a health screening at a "Health Fair" at their place of employment, to ensure that they are healthy enough to participate; at this time participants will also complete the investigators baseline dependent measures, and receive a pedometer. After a one-week baseline period during which they wear the pedometer and the investigators establish their typical number of steps per day, eligible participants will then be assigned to one of four treatments - a "no incentive" control condition, and three conditions in which they are entered into different kinds of monetary lotteries if they have met their step goals for that day. Participants' initial goal will be based on their steps during the baseline period, and the goal will increase by 250 steps each week, for a total of 12 weeks. After these 3 months, the incentives portion of the experiment ends, but participants continue to wear their pedometers and upload their data for an additional 6 months. At 3 months, 6 months, and then at the study end at 9 months, participants again complete the investigators dependent measures at follow-up Health Fairs at their place of employment.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Withdrawn
• Enrollment: 0
• Est. completion date: October 2013
• Est. primary completion date: April 2013
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: Both
• Age group: 18 Years and older

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• BMI of 28 or higher

• Pass the Par-Q

• answer "No" to all Par-Q questions

• at least 18 years of age

• has computer at home or work with compatible operating system (i.e. windows 2000, windows xp, windows vista, osX 10.3-10.5), internet access, and usb port

Exclusion Criteria:

• Anyone who does not meet all of the inclusion criteria

Study Design

Allocation: Randomized, Endpoint Classification: Efficacy Study, Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment, Masking: Double Blind (Caregiver, Outcomes Assessor), Primary Purpose: Treatment

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Obesity
• Sedentary Lifestyle

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Financial incentives for increasing physical exercise
Throughout the 12-week intervention, participants will receive step goals. The step goals will increase by 250 steps per week, The intervention will last a total of 12 weeks. After each seven-day week, step goals will increase by an additional 250 steps - thus over the 12 weeks, participants will be asked to increase their daily step count by 3,000. Participants will receive financial incentives to attain these step goals; the incentive schemes differ according to intervention arm.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
United States	Genzyme	Cambridge	Massachusetts

Sponsors (4)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Harvard University	Blue Cross Blue Shield, Genzyme, a Sanofi Company, Partners HealthCare

Country where clinical trial is conducted

United States, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Physical activity		12 weeks	No
Secondary	RAND 36-item Health Survey		3mo, 6mo, 9mo	No
Secondary	Health Stress questionnaire		3mo, 6mo, 9mo	No
Secondary	Emotional, Work, and Financial Attitudes questionnaire		3mo, 6mo, 9mo	No
Secondary	Weight loss		3mo, 6mo, 9mo	No
Secondary	Hemoglobin A1C		6mo	No
Secondary	Health behaviors questionnaire		3mo, 6mo, 9mo	No
Secondary	Word of mouth		6mo, 9mo	No
Secondary	Physical activity		6mo, 9mo	No