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A megastudy of text-based nudges encouraging patients to get vaccinated at an upcoming doctor's appointment
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

A megastudy of text-based nudges encouraging patients to get vaccinated at an upcoming doctor's appointment

Katherine L. Milkman, Mitesh S. Patel, Linnea Gandhi, Heather N. Graci, Dena M. Gromet, Hung Ho, Joseph S. Kay, Timothy W. Lee, Modupe Akinola, John Beshears, …
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS, v 118(20), 2101165118
18 May 2021
PMID: 33926993
url
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2101165118View
Published, Version of Record (VoR) Restricted

Abstract

Multidisciplinary Sciences Science & Technology Science & Technology - Other Topics ESI Highly Cited Paper (Incites)
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.

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230 citations in Scopus

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Multidisciplinary Sciences
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