By Alfred I. Neugut | May 13, 2021
Behavioral economics has acquired a certain degree of mystical respect in our intellectual lives with the writings of Gladwell and others two recent Nobel Prizes in Economics were awarded for this subject. It advises us on how to place objects in grocery stores (candy near the cash register) and similar behavioral recommendations, among them the use of incentives to motivate behavior.
During the Bloomberg administration, the New York City Department of Education utilized cash incentives in inner city failing schools to motivate grade school students to do better on the annual standardized tests. The program was a stunning success; children, in exchange for $30 or $40, achieved much improved test scores the teachers were also rewarded with small cash bonuses for the improvements in their students’ scores. Similar programs were utilized nationwide to motivate minority underserved high school students to take advanced placement cours
America may be at that juncture. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show
vaccinations peaked in mid-April, when 3.3 million doses were administered daily over a 7-day average. That average has fallen 24% in just two weeks.
“So it seems to me it s time to consider paying people,” Litan said.
He can’t say to what extent the $100 savings bonds will work, but he calls it a bold, innovative move.
“I d like to see more states do this, maybe pay different amounts, so that we get some more data to figure out how much of a difference it makes,” Litan said.
Stephen Higgins directs the Vermont Center on Behavior and Health at Vermont University. He’s looked at studies on the
Came under criticism for disability and coronavirus paper
President-Elect Joe Biden announced soon after the election that University of Pennsylvania Prof. Ezekiel Emanuel would serve on his coronavirus task force.
The oncologist chairs Penn’s ethics and health policy department and co-authored a paper in April that argued for treating people with disabilities differently in coronavirus care based of their life expectancy.
He has previously written in support of healthcare rationing and urged 75-year-olds to stop pursuing primary care. Emanuel advised President Obama on healthcare policy as well.
The College Fix reached out to six different professors for comment on Emanuel’s appointment to the COVID-19 Transition Advisory Board and to see what principles they wanted to see Biden implement with regard to coronavirus policy. Only one professor responded to the inquiries.
Behavioral strategies to promote a national COVID-19 vaccine program
National efforts to develop a COVID-19 vaccine at “warp speed” are beginning to yield a safe and effective vaccine. But this important milestone is only the first step in an equally important challenge: getting a majority of the U.S. public vaccinated. A pharmacist at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania draws up a COVID-19 vaccine dose. Diluted COVID-19 vaccines can only be kept at room-temperature for six hours before they expire. (Image: Dan Burke)
Authors of a viewpoint article in the
Journal of the American Medical Association share five strategies and implementation considerations, informed by insights from behavioral science, for a national COVID-19 vaccine promotion program.
Two commentaries published yesterday in
JAMA and a University of Michigan news release offer ideas from behavioral science and other fields to boost COVID-19 vaccine uptake in the United States and discuss the ethics of continuing placebo arms in trials of coronavirus vaccines already proven effective.
Evidence-based uptake strategies
The first commentary, by Kevin Volpp, MD, PhD, and Alison Buttenheim, PhD, MBA, of the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia, and George Loewenstein, PhD, of Carnegie Mellon University, tackled the problem of Americans hesitancy to take a COVID-19 vaccine.
They noted a September survey of 10,093 US adults showing that only 51% were definitely or probably going to be vaccinated, 25% indicated a probable unwillingness to be vaccinated, and 24% said they were unlikely to take a vaccine. Black respondents, those with a high school education or less, and Republicans were particularly distrustful of the vaccines. New data published today by the Kai