Penn researchers awarded $25M to conduct trial using smartphones to fight heart disease

The largest-ever study testing the effectiveness of an evidence-based approach to increasing physical activity using smartphone fitness trackers gamification to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease will launch at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Ascension, one of the nation’s leading non-profit health systems , thanks to a $25 million award. The six-year study, funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), will build on the highly successful BE ACTIVE trial, published in 2024, which demonstrated sustained increases in daily step counts using a behavioral economics based approach to gamification to enhance ongoing engagement, where participants were awarded points for meeting daily step goals and progress through levels based on accumulated points.

Doctors often tell patients to exercise more to improve heart health, but until now, large controlled trials like this one have been missing to prove that physical activity truly prevents heart events. “We’re testing whether a fairly simple points system, coupled with ongoing behavioral reinforcement to encourage participants, achieves sustained increases in physical activity to a sufficient degree to prevent heart attacks and save lives,” said Alexander C. Fanaroff, MD, an assistant professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at Penn Medicine and a core faculty member in the Penn Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics (CHIBE). “Despite overwhelming observational evidence that higher physical activity is associated with better cardiovascular health, no prior randomized trial has been large enough to prove that increasing activity actually prevents heart attacks and strokes and to quantify the magnitude of these effects.”