Testing Financial-Incentive Programs for Smoking Cessation

Sources: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reuters, NBC News, CBS News, Reuters, The Guardian, Los Angeles Times, TIME, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Huffington Post, US News & World Report, Business Standard, NPR, ABC, Tech Times, Yahoo Finance, The Business Journals, Knowledge@Wharton, LDI Health Economist, May 13, 2015 A study led by Scott Halpern, recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine, compared five smoking cessation techniques in 2,538 employees of CVS, along with their friends and relatives. The study found that many more people signed up to a program that offered them an $800 reward than one that threatened them with losing a $150 deposit and only offered a $650 reward. However, those in the penalty program were twice as likely to quit. “We found that those programs that first required people to deposit $150 of their own money were less acceptable to people than programs that were pure rewards,” Halpern said.

“However, among those who would have accepted either program, the deposit-based programs were twice as effective as the rewards-based programs and five times more effective than the standard of care which was provision of free access to behavior modification therapy and nicotine replacement therapy.”

Cass Sunstein, director of The Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School, compared the penalty program to taxes in an editorial for the New England Journal of Medicine. Based on the results, “CVS Health is rolling out a campaign called ‘700 Good Reasons,'” Halpern said. “Instead of requiring a $150 deposit, it will require a $50 up-front deposit. If people are abstinent at 6 and 12 months, they’ll not only get their $50 back but get an additional $700. Because they’ll still have some skin in the game, it should be fairly effective.”