According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, lots of companies are encouraging workers to get biometric screening. Here’s a picture of that:
But is there evidence that this promotes healthier behavior? Would love someone to direct me to any relevant research.
A recent news article reported that a grocery store in Durham, North Carolina now offers healthy checkout aisles for people interested in minimizing temptation. Ring up your groceries in that aisle, and you won’t be surrounded by candy bars and bags of chips. On the other hand, I’m guessing you will still be surrounded by magazine…
Last summer, New York City made a great stride toward promoting public health, by requiring chain restaurants to prominently publish calorie counts alongside their menus. This type of regulation holds the promise of improving people’s eating habits, without restricting their freedom to order whatever they want. Theoretically, this new regulation should help consumers make better…
Imagine you are 17 years old again and applying to college. You have your heart set on Stanford, but know it’s a long shot. Your well-meaning aunt, aware of your interest in that fine Palo Alto institution, buys you a Stanford sweatshirt. Would you wear it before you found out whether you had been accepted? ……
Insurers can use behavioral economics, which examines why people make certain decisions and then determines how to influence said decisions, to compel members to improve their health, according to research from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “I don’t think there’s any question that behavioral economics approaches have a lot of potential to contribute to healthcare,”…
I don’t think Tom Hanks will be starring in the movie version of my latest blog post, but click on this link to see an essay I wrote in a medical magazine about how to use insights from behavioral economics to improve patients’ sleep in the hospitals.
Here is a video of a webinar in which Avni Shah and I discuss some controversies about what governments should do when consumers harm themselves through irrational behavior. Avni is a doctoral student in Marketing at Fuqua. Check out the bag of sugar she pulls out to illustrate the dangers of big gulp beverages. Feel free to add questions or comments, and I’ll chime in with my additional thoughts.