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Journal Article
A Mega-Study of Text-Based Nudges Encouraging Patients to Get Vaccinated at an Upcoming Doctor’s Appointment
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Author(s)
Many Americans fail to get life-saving vaccines each year, and the availability of a vaccine for COVID-19 makes the challenge of encouraging vaccination more urgent than ever. We present a large field experiment (N = 47,306) testing 19 nudges delivered to patients via text message and designed to boost adoption of the influenza vaccine. Our findings suggest that text messages sent prior to a primary care visit can boost vaccination rates by an average of 5%. Overall, interventions performed better when they were 1) framed as reminders to get flu shots that were already reserved for the patient and 2) congruent with the sort of communications patients expected to receive from their healthcare provider (i.e., not surprising, casual, or interactive). The best-performing intervention in our study reminded patients twice to get their flu shot at their upcoming doctor’s appointment and indicated it was reserved for them. This successful script could be used as a template for campaigns to encourage the adoption of life-saving vaccines, including against COVID-19.
Date Published:
2021
Citations:
Karlan, Dean, Katherine Milkman, Mitesh Patel, Heather Graci, Dena Gromet, Hung Ho, Joseph Kay, Timothy Lee, Modupe Akinola, John Beshears, Jonathan Bogard, Alison Buttenheim, Christopher Chabris, Gretchen Chapman, James Choi, Hengchen Dai, Craig Fox, Amir Goren, Matthew Hilchey, Jillian Hmurovic, Leslie John, Melanie Kim, David Laibson, Cait Lamberton, Brigitte Madrian, Michelle Meyer, Maria Modanu, Jimin Nam, Todd Rogers, Renante Rodina, Silvia Saccardo, Maheen Shermohammed, Dilip Soman, Jehan Sparks, Caleb Warren, Megan Weber, Ron Berman, Chalanda Evans, Christopher Snider, Eli Tsukayama, Christophe Van den Bulte, Kevin Volpp, Angela Duckworth. 2021. A Mega-Study of Text-Based Nudges Encouraging Patients to Get Vaccinated at an Upcoming Doctor’s Appointment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (20)
