A Theoretically Grounded Systematic Review of Material Incentives for Weight Loss: Implications for Interventions

Burns, Rachel J.; Donovan, Angela S.; Ackermann, Ronald T.; Finch, Emily; Rothman, Alexander J.; Jeffery, Robert W.

doi:10.1007/s12160-012-9403-4

Cited by 61 publications

(85 citation statements)

References 47 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The finding in the present review that MCCs are only effective for weight loss during treatment, supports Burns et al's (2012) narrative review concerning the long term effectiveness of MCCs. While Burns et al (2012) also concluded that larger deposits may make MCCs more effective, our quantitative review did not support this.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

“…In a qualitative synthesis of evidence, Burns et al (2012) suggested weight loss achieved during treatment is not maintained after termination of refunds and MCCs may be more effective when the deposit is particularly large. However, these claims were not examined through meta-analyses.…”

Section: Monetary Contingency Contractsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Paul-Ebhomhimhen and Avenell (2008) and Burns et al (2012) reviews of financial incentives evaluated the impact of weight loss related MCCs on the outcome of actual weight loss only. However, weight loss may be adversely affected by high dropout in behavioural interventions (Grave et al, 2005;Honas, Early, Frederickson, & O'Brien, 2003;Inelmen et al, 2005).…”

Section: Monetary Contingency Contractsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The utility of monetary contingency contracts for weight loss: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Sykes-Muskett

Prestwich

Lawton

et al. 2015

Health Psychology Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Financial incentives to improve health have received increasing attention, but are subject to ethical concerns. Monetary Contingency Contracts (MCCs), which require individuals to deposit money that is refunded contingent on reaching a goal, are a potential alternative strategy. This review evaluates systematically the evidence for weight loss-related MCCs. Randomized controlled trials testing the effect of weight loss-related MCCs were identified in online databases. Random effects meta-analyses were used to calculate overall effect sizes for weight loss and participant retention. The association between MCC characteristics and weight loss/participant retention effects were calculated using meta-regression. There was a significant small-to-medium effect of MCCs on weight loss during treatment when one outlier study was removed. Group refunds, deposit not paid as lump sum, participant setting own deposit size, and additional behaviour change techniques were associated with greater weight loss during treatment. Post-treatment, there was no significant effect of MCCs on weight loss. There was a significant small-to-medium effect of MCCs on participant retention during treatment.Researcher-set deposits paid as one lump sum, refunds delivered on an all-or-nothing basis and refunds contingent on attendance at classes were associated with greater retention during treatment. Post treatment, there was no significant effect of MCCs on participant retention. The results support the use of MCCs to promote weight loss and participant retention up to the point that the incentive is removed, and identifies the conditions under which MCCs work best.Key words: Weight loss, Obesity, Incentives, Contracting Monetary Contingency Contracts 3The worldwide prevalence of obesity has almost doubled since 2005, with at least 2.8 million adults dying each year as a result of being overweight or obese (World Health Organisation, 2013). Despite the availability of clinical guidelines (e.g., National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, 2014) and research reviews on the most effective techniques for weight management (e.g., Dombrowski et al., 2012), the predicted global increase in overweight and obesity (Kelly, Yang, Chen, Reynolds, & He, 2008) suggests that further weight management research is needed. A potentially less controversial way of providing personal financial incentives for health behaviour change is to encourage individuals to invest a sum of money that is refunded contingent on the achievement of a specific goal. As long as this approach is voluntary, it may provide a fairer and less coercive form of financial incentive, as it does not involve the offer of external financial gain. It could be argued that offering this type of incentive as an intervention may be less fair for individuals on lower incomes as they may be less able to deposit a sum of money to be used as a reward. However, this could be overcome by setting deposit amounts as a Monetary Contingency Contracts 4 certain percentage of disposable ...

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Section: Monetary Contingency Contractsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Monetary Contingency Contractsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The utility of monetary contingency contracts for weight loss: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Sykes-Muskett

Prestwich

Lawton

et al. 2015

Health Psychology Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This conclusion has also been corroborated by in reviews of incentives in health behaviour [10,11]. However, we feel that their subsequent discussion, citing the research of Volpp et al [12] and Higgins et al [13], diminishes this statement and provides a misleading view of the value of PFIs in promoting health behaviour once the incentive has ceased.…”

Section: Evidence For Long-term Effects Of Incentives On Health Behavmentioning

confidence: 69%

The Goose Is (Half) Cooked: a Consideration of the Mechanisms and Interpersonal Context Is Needed to Elucidate the Effects of Personal Financial Incentives on Health Behaviour

et al. 2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

While we agree that personal financial incentives (PFIs) may have some utility in public health interventions to motivate people in the uptake and persistence of health behaviour, we disagree with some of the sentiments outlined by Lynagh and colleagues [Lynagh, M. C., Sanson-Fisher, R. W., & Bonevski, B. (2013). What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Guiding principles for the use of financial incentives in health-behaviour change. Medicine,20,[114][115][116][117][118][119][120]. Specifically, we feel that the article gives a much stronger impression that PFIs will likely lead to long-term behaviour change once the incentive has been removed than is warranted by current research. This claim has not received strong empirical support nor is it grounded in psychological theory on the role of incentives and motivation. We also feel that the presentation of some of the tenets of self-determination theory by the authors is misleading. Based on self-determination theory, we propose that PFIs, without sufficient consideration of the mechanisms by which external incentives affect motivation and the interpersonal context in which they are presented, are unlikely to lead to persistence in health behaviour once the incentive is removed. We argue that interventions that adopt PFIs as a strategy to promote health-behaviour change, should incorporate strategies in the interpersonal context to minimize the undermining effect of the incentives on intrinsic motivation. Interventions should present incentives as informational regarding individuals' competence rather than as purely contingent on behavioural engagement and emphasise self-determined reasons for pursuing the behaviour. International Journal of Behavioural

show abstract

“…Financial health incentives are defined as rewards with monetary value contingent on the achievement of prespecified health behaviors or outcomes [12], such as rewarding people to walk more [13] or to lose weight [14]. According to behavioral economics, timely financial incentives leverage people's predictable tendency to act in favor of their immediate self-interest -a principal referred to as the "present bias" [10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the Carrot Rewards app, a population-level incentive-based intervention promoting step counts across two Canadian provinces: a quasi-experimental study (Preprint)

Mitchell¹,

White²,

Lau³

et al. 2018

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

A Theoretically Grounded Systematic Review of Material Incentives for Weight Loss: Implications for Interventions

Abstract: Definitive conclusions about the usefulness of material incentives for weight loss could not be drawn. A theoretically grounded approach to designing and testing incentive strategies is encouraged.

Cited by 61 publications

References 47 publications

The utility of monetary contingency contracts for weight loss: a systematic review and meta-analysis

The utility of monetary contingency contracts for weight loss: a systematic review and meta-analysis

The Goose Is (Half) Cooked: a Consideration of the Mechanisms and Interpersonal Context Is Needed to Elucidate the Effects of Personal Financial Incentives on Health Behaviour

Evaluating the Carrot Rewards app, a population-level incentive-based intervention promoting step counts across two Canadian provinces: a quasi-experimental study (Preprint)

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About