Incentive Disbursement Pattern

Exercise Clinical Trial

Official title:

Increasing, Decreasing, and Stable Incentives in a Health App Aggregator Website

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT02154256
• Other study ID #: AM14I001
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• First received: May 27, 2014
• Last updated: September 26, 2016
• Start date: June 2014
• Est. completion date: August 2014

Study information

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

Clinical Trial Summary

This study will be a three-arm randomized, controlled trial that the investigators will run in 2014 with approximately 4,000 users of an app called Achievemint. AchieveMint rewards users with points (which can be redeemed for prizes) for every step they take. The investigators will be testing three different point-based programs designed to encourage users to build exercise habits over the course of a month: stable incentives, increasing incentives, and decreasing incentives. After the investigators' month-long intervention period, the investigators will observe users' step counts during a month-long follow-up period to test which of the investigators' habit-building programs leaves users with the best exercise habits (or the highest step counts) after they conclude.

The time frame of observation will be 8 months.

Description:

Past research has shown that paying people to exercise repeatedly can create exercise habits that last long after cash incentives are removed (Charness and Gneezy, 2009; Acland and Levy, 2013). the investigators' research will examine what kind of incentive programs build long-lasting habits most effectively. Specifically, the investigators will compare the long-term effects (based on step counts in the one month after the conclusion of the investigators' intervention) of three different interventions: (1) incentives for taking steps that remain stable over the course of a month (stable incentives); (2) incentives (of equal net value) for taking steps that start low and grow larger over the course of the month (increasing incentives); and (3) incentives (of equal net value) for taking steps that start high and decrease over the course of the month (decreasing incentives). For example, during the month-long intervention, users in group (1) will receive 6x their usual points every day for each step they take; users in group (2) will receive 2x the usual points for several days, then 3x the usual points, and so on up to 10x the usual number of points; finally, group (3) will have the same incentive schedule as group (2) but in reverse - starting with a 10x multiplier and declining. The question is this: Is it better to ease people into exercise when trying to help them form a lasting habit, to start them off intensively and then ease up the pressure, or to maintain steady, constant incentives to exercise? By examining the steps taken by members of the investigators' three experimental groups in the month following the investigators' intervention, the investigators will be able to assess whether increasing, decreasing, or stable incentives are ideal for creating lasting habits after incentives are removed. The anticipated output of this project is a published research paper.

The time frame of observation will be 8 months.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 3519
• Est. completion date: August 2014
• Est. primary completion date: August 2014
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: Both
• Age group: 18 Years and older

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• all users of the Achievemint app will be eligible for inclusion

Exclusion Criteria:

• all users of the Achievemint app who are in the top 30 percentiles of activity levels will be excluded.

Study Design

Allocation: Randomized, Endpoint Classification: Efficacy Study, Intervention Model: Factorial Assignment, Masking: Single Blind (Subject), Primary Purpose: Prevention

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Exercise

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Increasing incentives
Offer incentives that increase over time.
• Decreasing incentives
offer incentives that decrease over time
• stable incentives
offer incentives that are stable over time, but higher than usual care

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
United States	University of Pennsylvania	Philadelphia	Pennsylvania

Sponsors (1)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
University of Pennsylvania

Country where clinical trial is conducted

United States, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Steps walked	Subjects will track steps walked with pedometers. The investigators will track how many steps they take for 8 months	8 months	No