The document discusses how behavioral economics can be used to promote health and wellness. It outlines six behavioral tendencies - inertia, temporal discounting, loss aversion, social norms, choices, and availability - and provides examples of how benefit designs, communications, and programs can leverage these tendencies to influence people's health-related decisions and behaviors in a positive way. For instance, it discusses how using defaults, framing messages around what people will lose rather than gain, highlighting social norms, and simplifying choices can help overcome inertia, loss aversion, and decision paralysis.
4. We Use Mental Shortcuts $ ______ $ ______ A cup of coffee and a newspaper together cost $3.50. The coffee costs $1.00 more than the newspaper. How much does the newspaper cost?
5. Do NYC Cab Drivers Maximize Their Outcomes?* * Camerer et al., Labor Supply of New York City Cab Drivers: One Day at a Time. Quarterly Journal of Economics , 1997.
8. Organ Donation Source: Johnson & Goldstein. Do Defaults Save Lives? Science , November 2003. Effective consent percentage Explicit consent (opt-in) Presumed consent (opt-out) Plan Design: Leveraging Defaults to Overcome Inertia
22. Plan Design: Using Loss Aversion to Save Money Targeted employees with maintenance medications Prescription home delivery (Large retailer) Two retail courtesy fills allowed (a financial loss) By third fill employees must... Active decision required Switch to home delivery Stay at retail Call PBM to switch Pay drugโs full cost at retail
24. Social Norms: Smoking Is Addictive, but Quitting Is Contagious* *Christakis & Fowler. The Collective Dynamics of Smoking in a Large Social Network. The New England Journal of Medicine , 2008 . โ What people need to understand is that because our lives are connected, our health is connected.โ โ Nicholas Christakis, M.D, Ph.D.
34. A New Customer Reality for Wellness Messaging? A Possible Focus of Health Engagement Over the Course of One Year Emphasize health engagement the other 50 weeks AE pre-AE post-AE Get flu shot; why itโs particularly important for diabetics Diabetes c. Take an HRQ; special sidebar on diabetes Diabetes d. Diabetes a. Reduce the focus on annual enrollment Diabetes b.
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36. A Way to Enhance Behavior Change Efforts educate motivate facilitate Make It Easy Make It Relevant
Editor's Notes
This is how we should think about Health Engagement, and behavior change, in general. Youโll note that while education is still a part of the mix, itโs not the lionโs share of the mix. Motivation is at least half of the equation, and facilitation, that is, making things easy for people to do, is a large portion too. Both motivation and facilitation are key aspects of what behavioral economics tells us about decision making, and we can integrate these into our plans, processes and messaging.