Health
How Incentives Can Drive Positive Health Outcomes
The use of financial incentives to change health-related behaviors is becoming increasingly common. However, the results of incentive schemes in the past have been mixed.
One reason may be that the underlying psychology behind incentive programs still needs to be fully understood. For example, a lottery-based financial incentive scheme can encourage people to attend eye screening appointments but only increases vaccination rates if the incentive is immediate.
Motivate Patients
Incentives are often a key driver for improving patient behaviors and healthcare outcomes. Patients may be offered incentives to sign up for a wellness program or participate in a vaccination campaign. Employers may provide employees with cash rewards to encourage healthy eating and exercise. Many ‘know your HIV’ programs in developing countries offer incentives to ensure people pick up their results.
Payment per achievement, in the form of payments to physicians for performing certain procedures or achieving certain quality metrics, is one method healthcare systems use to motivate providers to deliver value-based care.
But how much do these incentives work? Studies have shown that incentives’ effectiveness depends on the reward behavior and subtle design details, such as how an incentive is delivered or framed. Using behavioral science to drive these programs could yield better results and cost savings. For example, one controlled study found that a targeted, micro-incentive approach generated eight dollars in cost savings for every dollar spent on the program.
Encourage Adherence
Incentives can be used to encourage people to stick with their health goals. This can be done through various approaches, including price signals such as sin taxes or subsidies and commitment devices such as public contracts where individuals agree to change their behavior for a set period in return for additional benefits.
Several studies have reported that incentives informed by behavioral economics can improve adherence. However, these incentives have rarely been tested among youth living with HIV despite the high need for enhanced compliance.
One study implementing an incentive-based model to increase adherence reported that the program improved viral load suppression outcomes. The study also included several complementary measures, such as regular client-centered adherence meetings, monthly adherence audits, and feedback reports. Incentive magnitudes vary widely across studies, with payments ranging from annual provider income. However, most studies need to report detailed information regarding the amount of incentives and how they are paid.
Encourage Routine Check-Ups
Incentives are one route to encouraging routine check-ups and other trends, such as value-driven purchasing, patient-centered care and clinical performance management. But it’s important to consider how incentives are framed and designed. Using price signals to encourage health behaviors can be successful; for example, increasing the cost of tobacco and alcohol has been shown to reduce consumption.
However, introducing rewards can also backfire. For example, freebies like doughnuts or movie tickets can discourage people from getting the COVID-19 vaccine.
Incentives can be offered to individuals, groups of providers or even entire health systems. They can be tied to individual, group, or network performance markers or even at the practice or integrated delivery system level. The size of these incentives varies widely, and their frequency can be monthly, quarterly or annually. Moreover, linking incentives to health outcomes or measures can be demotivating because improvements tend to plateau over time. Instead, focusing on measurable improvements in quality or cost may be more effective.
Encourage Self-Care
Incentives are often viewed as encouraging healthy behavior and reducing overall healthcare costs. However, supporters and critics disagree on whether incentives are appropriate and effective. Supporters generally believe that people should be encouraged where possible into behaviors that promote improved health outcomes and that appropriately targeted incentive schemes can provide a form of symmetric or libertarian paternalism that steers people toward better choices without necessarily limiting what those choices are.
For example, one study randomly assigned participants to receive0 cash incentive for visiting their primary care provider (PCP) after enrolling in a community-based primary care program. These low-income patients were newly eligible for free or low-cost health insurance because the state had not relaxed its stringent Medicaid eligibility requirements.
The researchers found that a small financial incentive increased the number of first-time visits relative to the non-incentivized group. They also found that incentives framed as gains were more effective than those framed as losses.
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Discover the benefits of fasting for 24 hours.
24-hour intermittent fasting is often recommended for weight loss, but also its many health benefits.
In this article, I detail the benefits of intermittent fasting, and particularly its practice over 24 hours. You will also be able to find my testimonial and my advice for a successful 24-hour intermittent fasting.
24hr Intermittent fasting to live longer in good health!
This sentence comes up constantly when one is interested in the subject. Simple fashion effect or real health interest? That’s the real question.
The objective of this practice is based on calorie restriction and resting the digestive system as a whole.
When we eat too much, binge, and get too much protein, our aging process is accelerated. Our body ages faster. To counter this effect, it is, therefore, necessary to fast. You boost your production of growth hormone, a hormone of youth.
In practice, it remains very complicated. It was Dr. Valter Longo who simplified the practice of intermittent fasting to reap all the health benefits. But in reality, is it effective?
The benefits of 24 hours intermittent fasting
Many scientific studies have highlighted the following health benefits of intermittent fasting:
• Promote weight loss, maintenance, lower bad cholesterol and increase well.
• Reduce cardiovascular and cancer risks.
• Regulate blood sugar by lowering insulin production and increasing fat metabolism.
• Lower the markers of inflammation ( responsible for the aging process ).
• Stimulate growth hormone production ( 2000% during 24-hour intermittent fasting ). This molecule helps you fight to age, tap into your fat and increase your muscle mass.
• Regulate hormonal disturbances after meals.
• Diversify the composition of the intestinal flora.
• Improve the quality of sleep.
It should be noted that these benefits are mainly found in a population that is overweight or obese, sedentary, or suffering from metabolic disease. The effects of intermittent fasting in healthy, physically active, or athletic people seem small to non-existent.
Intermittent fasting and weight loss
According to scientific research, intermittent fasting is effective for weight loss.
The main reason for the effectiveness of intermittent fasting on weight loss is calorie restriction.
Indeed, skipping one or more meals considerably reduces your food consumption. You then find yourself in an energy deficit, and your body has no choice but to draw on the stock of glycogen and fats to continue to function.
Practiced 1 to 2 times a week, over 3 to 24 weeks, intermittent fasting can lead to a weight loss of 3 to 8% of the initial weight, with a non-negligible share of abdominal fat (reduction in the circumference of cut).
However, over the long term, the evidence on the effectiveness of intermittent fasting remains very weak. We don’t know if, as with all low-calorie diets, it leads to a Yoyo effect and significant regain of lost pounds.
To lose weight permanently, mainly fat, while maintaining your muscle mass, it is advisable to combine a slight caloric restriction and the practice of sport regularly.
Need to lose weight permanently?
My Sport to lose weight program has already enabled hundreds of people to lose weight, improve their health and be in better shape! It includes sports sessions in videos, tools to calculate your fat loss, tips for starting running, recipes, and much more… It’s never too late to start the sport and lose weight for your health.
Opinion on the intermittent fasting 24h
So I wanted to get to the bottom of it and test this practice. To simplify things, Dr. Longo has been testing different protocols for several years. Simpler protocols to apply daily while maintaining the benefits. For people with a healthy lifestyle, practicing 24 hours a month is very effective.
So I fasted for 24 hours. The easiest way is to start after dinner. You eat dinner normally, then nothing until dinner the next day. Hydrate well. You can also consume tea, coffee, infusions but without sugar.
I was afraid of being too hungry, of being a wreck unable to move. And not at all. I did my intermittent fast one day back from vacation, in the car. I felt good, without a stroke. What a pleasure to sit down to eat in the evening, even if the goal is to eat normally and no more than usual.
I resumed the sport the next day with a big day ( 3h30 of cycling chained to 1h of jogging ). I felt good, I didn’t have any cravings. I even recovered better. I am full faster on the meals that follow. The results are very positive.
However, here are some tips to guide you:
• No sport on the day of intermittent fasting, or a short cardio session (30 minutes).
• Take care. Get out of your house, otherwise, the day will be too long to manage unless you have plenty of tasks to accomplish.
• Don’t throw yourself on the food when you eat again. Don’t say to yourself: “it’s good, I’ve done the hardest I can let go”.
• Remember to drink well ( 1.5 to 2 liters of water ) and take hot drinks for satiety.
Be careful if you have medical treatment, do not do it. I do not know the actions of this practice under these conditions. A drug does not have the same effect in these conditions, so check with your doctor.
I await your reactions after your tests. Intermittent fasting is increasingly practiced in the United States, to fight against junk food and diseases of civilization. Its health benefits are undeniable. Live old and above all live better!
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