Creating Exercise Habits Through Incentives for Routines

Body Weight Clinical Trial

— Routines  

Official title:

Creating Exercise Habits Through Incentives for Routines

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT02346799
• Other study ID #: 821291
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• First received: January 5, 2015
• Last updated: August 18, 2016
• Start date: January 2015
• Est. completion date: February 2016

Study information

• Verified date: August 2016
• Source: University of Pennsylvania
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Health authority: United States: Institutional Review Board
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

The purpose of this study is to determine whether healthy habits can be formed more effectively when people are rewarded for repeated engagement in a given healthy behavior at a specific, routinized time each day rather than at any time.

Description:

The investigators seek to examine the effect of incentives for routine exercise on the development of persistent exercise habits. Specifically, the purpose of this study is to determine whether healthy habits can be formed more effectively when people are rewarded for repeated engagement in a given healthy behavior at a specific, routinized time each day rather than at any time. Through a partnership with a Fortune-500 company, the investigators plan to run a large-scale, randomized field controlled trial with approximately 3,000-4,000 participants aimed at increasing exercise rates (as measured by gym visits). During an incentivized four week intervention period, the investigators will encourage participants to select a two-hour window during the day when they feel they are most willing and able to exercise. Depending on condition, participants will [a] receive no further instruction or incentives (control condition), [b] receive a $3 or $7 bonus for each day they exercise during the incentive period (flexible incentive condition), or [c] receive a $3 or $7 bonus for each day they exercise if and only if they exercise within their specified "workout window" (routine incentive condition). Additionally, participants in a fourth condition, the social routine incentive condition, will face the same incentives as those in the routine incentive condition, but will be required to coordinate the workout window they select with a partner in their office. The investigators predict that the less flexible incentives will lead to greater habit formation than flexible incentives, producing larger and longer-lasting increases in exercise post-intervention. The investigators further predict that coordinating with a workout partner will produce even stronger habit formation. The investigators will collect and analyze data from participants' worksite gyms, which track gym entries and exits, as well as pedometer data when available.

Our experiment will recruit employees at a Fortune-500 company who wish to exercise more. Recruitment will be done through an email and poster campaign. The registration stage will take approximately four weeks. All employees at all offices with on-site gyms will be eligible to enroll and upon enrollment will be asked to select a partner who works in the same office and who is also enrolling. Enrolling employees will also be asked to indicate their preferred daily workout time (a two hour "workout window") and to provide basic demographic and exercise-related information (e.g., gender, age, height, weight, number of gym visits per week). If registration exceeds the target sample size (4,000 employees), priority for enrollment will be given to employees who do not already exercise regularly (at least twice a week). The remaining participants will be assigned to a "holdout control" condition. Once registration is closed, participants will be assigned randomly (at the pairs level) to one of the four experimental conditions.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 2702
• Est. completion date: February 2016
• Est. primary completion date: February 2016
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: Both
• Age group: 18 Years and older

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Participants must be full-time employees of partner company

Exclusion Criteria:

Study Design

Allocation: Randomized, Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment, Masking: Single Blind (Subject)

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Body Weight

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Workout Window Reminders
Participants will receive emails at prespecified times reminding them to exercise, either during a specific two hour window or at any time during the day.
• Individual Workout Incentive Payment
Participants will be paid $3 or $7 for each workout completed during the appropriate times.
• Lump Incentive Payments
Participants will receive $20 payments for completing post treatment survey.
• Partner Assignment
Participants will be required to have same "workout window" as partners.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
United States	University of Pennsylvania	Philadelphia	Pennsylvania

Sponsors (3)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
University of Pennsylvania	Harvard University, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

Country where clinical trial is conducted

United States, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Average weekly number of 30+ minute visits to company gym	Number of times per week participants enter the company gym and exit at least 30 minutes later	Up to one year	No
Primary	Duration of habit	Length of time that weekly gym visits takes to return to baseline level	Up to one year	No
Secondary	Activity level as measured by Fitbit pedometers	Number of steps taken during workouts, as measured by Fitbit pedometers	Up to one year	No