Are incentive schemes effective in changing young people’s behaviour? A systematic review

Abstract

Objective:To examine the impact of single or dual component incentive schemes on health and social behaviours, in young people. Design: A systematic review. Method: Systematic and comprehensive cross-disciplinary searches were conducted to identify research. Following screening for relevance, included studies were quality assessed and data extracted. Both outcome and process evaluation studies were included in either a statistical meta-analysis or narrative synthesis. Results: Sixteen trials and seven process evaluations were included in the review. There is some evidence to show that incentives are effective in improving single health behaviours, but not complex health behaviours. Incentives had no impact on levels of reported effort, or attendance in education studies. Whilst viewed favourably by young people, incentives did not necessarily translate into improvements in targeted behaviours. Conclusion: Evidence suggests that incentives schemes do not provide policy makers or practitioners with a simple route to improving young people's health or other behaviours. However, there is evidence that incentives can be useful in encouraging positive health behaviour change where a simple or single action is required. ObjectiveThis paper reports the methods and findings of a systematic review evaluating the effectiveness of direct, behaviour-linked incentives to improve the health-related behaviours of young people. Health-related behaviours in childhood and young adulthood are important in shaping many aspects of adult health 1 . The factors that shape health-related behaviours and their improvement are complex. The use of direct incentives is an increasingly popular strategy for helping young people

Effects on alcohol use of a Swedish school-based prevention program for early adolescents: a longitudinal study

“…The program does include some components that are corroborated by research, such as interactive learning strategies [24, 25, 37, 38], but is partly based on resistance training, which is not supported in the literature [36]. Encouragement is fueled by rewards through competitions and prizes, which have received some support for effectiveness in improving health behaviors [46]. Further, the Triad intervention followed the pupils for an extended period of time and focused on strengthening social and moral competencies and improving social relations with adults, which is supported by research [40, 41].…”

“…The methodological approach of using prizes as rewards relies on frameworks such as learning theory [44] and social learning theory [45], where the behavior of remaining smoke-free becomes attractive and worthwhile; also, classmates are important to adolescents and function as influential role models for smoking initiation. Incentives, such as prizes or rewards, may be effective in improving single health behaviors, as shown by J Kavanagh, A Oakley, A Harden, A Trouton and C Powell [46]. However, this has not been the case for complex health behaviors.…”

Financial incentives to encourage healthy behaviour: an analysis of UK media coverage

“…It cannot be said that there is overwhelming evidence for their efficacy. [18][19][20][21] Whilst there is evidence to suggest they could be useful in some areas, [22][23][24][25] rationales for incentive schemes in the UK are also influenced by social, cultural and political factors, one of which has been the Ôchoice agendaÕ of the UK government in the past decade. This focuses on individual choice and ÔempowermentÕ as methods of promoting competition and quality of health, education and welfare services.…”

Anreize zur Beeinflussung der individuellen Rauchentwöhnung – Ergebnisse eines „Overview of Reviews“ zu Wirksamkeitseffekten

“…Kinder, Jugendliche und erwachsene [3,8,10,[12][13][14][15][16][18][19][20][21][22], wobei in je einem weiteren systematischen Review zusätzlich auch unkontrollierte Studien [8] bzw. prospektive Kohortenstudien [18] berücksichtigt wurden.…”

“…Bei den eingeschlossenen Personengruppen handelt es sich in 15 von 17 systematischen Reviews um Erwachsene und in den verbleibenden 2 systematischen Reviews um die Zielgruppen der Kinder (5-12 Jahre) und Jugendlichen (13-18 Jahre) [16] sowie ausschließlich der Jugendlichen (11-19 Jahre) [8].…”