Giving up smoking is one of the hardest things to do but new research shows that employers can convince their employees to give it up with the right combination of financial incentives, according to a recently published study.
The study, which was conducted by the CVS Health Research Institute in collaboration with Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, analyzed 2,538 cases and discovered some interesting trends.
The researchers found that employees who were offered an $800 incentive, a financial reward to quit smoking, led to a lot of signups but not a lot of success stories. At the same time, when employees were asked to first make a non-refundable deposit of $150 out of their own pockets to be eligible for the same $800 incentive, fewer signed up, however, those who did put their $150 on stake on the line to win the prize had a far greater rate of success when it came to successfully quitting smoking.
The study’s lead author and assistant professor of medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Scott Halpern, MD, was quoted in a press release as having said that the “study is one of the first to compare incentive programs that first require deposits and programs that entail pure rewards to promote healthy behaviors. The results are fully consistent with the behavioral theory that people are typically more motivated to avoid losses than to seek gains.”
This study is one of the first to compare incentive programs that first require deposits and programs that entail pure rewards to promote healthy behaviors (…) The results are fully consistent with the behavioral theory that people are typically more motivated to avoid losses than to seek gains. Although the need to make monetary deposits deters some people from participating, deposit-requiring incentive programs can produce robust, long-term results in helping to change complex health behaviors.
Researchers derive from the study that incentive based programs which require people to invest their own money are less effective overall than reward-based programs of similar value because fewer people sign up for programs requiring a deposit.
While the experiment proves smoking cessation programs work best with your own money on the line, it also notes that a lot of employees were unable to sign up for it due to the sizable $150 deposit, according to a report on Business Insider.
Following the success of the experiment, CVS now plans to introduce a quit smoking program for its entire workforce, but in light of the lack of registrations with the deposit required program, it intends to lower the initial deposit from $150 to $50 in an attempt to ensure that their employees reap the benefits of the program.
In other CVS coverage here at Immortal News, the company recently agreed to pay $22 million in order to settle a legal dispute regarding two alleged pill mills in the sunshine state which were allegedly responsible for the unlawful distribution of painkillers.
Have you ever tried to quit smoking?
