The COVID-19 pandemic presented the field of behavioral science with an insanely consequential and robust real-world testing ground. Once vaccinations became available, the challenge was to encourage as many people as possible to get vaccinated.
UCLA Anderson’s Hengchen Dai and Carnegie Mellon’s Silvia Saccardo, along with UCLA Health’s Maria Han, Daniel Croymans and other co-authors, contributed to this field-testing bonanza with a large-scale real-world research project in 2021 that studied the effectiveness of a series of specific text nudges sent to nearly 100,000 patients of the UCLA Health System to remind them they were eligible for a jab.