Jun 13 2022
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Penn Medicine News: Text Messaging Shows Promise in Reaching Unvaccinated Patients

By In the News

From Penn Medicine News: Automated text messaging was as effective as direct phone calls in getting unvaccinated patients to seek out a COVID-19 shot, according to a new study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania that demonstrated the possibility of lower-cost alternatives to traditional patient outreach. The research was published today in JAMA Network Open. “The take-away is that the text arms of our study were comparable to the phone-only arm, but the text messaging is less resource-intensive since a live call center only needs to talk to those who are already interested instead of making cold…

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May 16 2022
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Washington Post: How ‘Nudge Economics’ Lets Companies Pass the Buck

By In the News

From The Washington Post: I’ve never been able to decide if the idea that we can “nudge” people into better decision-making that improves the world around them is an optimistic or deeply cynical impulse. On the positive side: it assumes that many a societal problem can have relatively simple solutions, if only we can get people out of their own way. But there is a darker interpretation, too. As behavioral finance economists Nick Chater and George Loewenstein write in a recently released working paper, the mass acceptance of behavioral nudges “unwittingly helped promote the interests of corporations who oppose systemic change.”…

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May 16 2022
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How CHIBE Researchers Use Behavioral Economics With Their Kids and Family

By CHIBEblog

CHIBE researchers spend their days experimenting with the best ways to encourage patients and clinicians to make decisions that are in their best interest. How can we nudge patients to take their medication every day? How can we encourage physical activity? What helps people quit smoking? What might deter clinicians from overprescribing opioids? But what about in their own families? Do CHIBE members hang up their proverbial behavioral economics hat when they enter their own house? Or do they take some of the principles from their field and apply it to tooth brushing or tantrums? Hear from some of our…

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Apr 21 2022
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Freakonomics: Should We Have to Pay for Our Sins?

By In the News

From Freakonomics: Taxes on alcohol and tobacco promise to make people healthier and raise public funds. But can they backfire? Bapu Jena looks at the complicated economics of sin taxes. ROBERTO: For a long time in the U.S. we’ve had really an epidemic of chronic diseases and many of those are related to nutrition. Unhealthy diets contribute to obesity, type two diabetes, tooth decay That’s Christina Roberto. ROBERTO: I am the presidential associate professor of health policy. I’m at the University of Pennsylvania. I study food policies to try to promote healthy eating. And sugar-sweetened beverage taxes have gained a lot…

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