Penn Med study finds that behavioral nudges increase flu vaccination rates

The study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, revealed that implementing subtle “nudges” to influence decision-making increased patients’ likelihood of receiving a flu vaccine by 28%. The research findings come amid stagnant flu shot uptake and rising vaccine hesitancy across the United States.

Shivan Mehta, associate chief innovation officer at Penn Medicine and co-author of the study, said in an interview with The Daily Pennsylvanian that this study focused on patients who already come in for primary care clinician visits.

“We wanted to provide nudges or behavioral interventions to both the patient and the primary care clinician to see if these interventions, when we combine them together, can actually effectively increase flu vaccine rates during the visit — but also even in the months after their primary care visit,” Mehta said.