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. 2012 Jan 30:344:e522.
doi: 10.1136/bmj.e522.

Commitment contracts as a way to health

Scott D Halpern  1 , David A Asch, Kevin G Volpp
Affiliations

Commitment contracts as a way to health

Scott D Halpern et al. BMJ. .

Abstract

Commitment contracts, whereby people deposit money that they receive back only if they succeed, have substantial conceptual appeal as a method of changing health behaviour. Scott Halpern, David Asch, and Kevin Volpp examine the evidence behind them and find many unanswered questions

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: All authors have completed the ICJME unified disclosure form at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf (available on request from the corresponding author) and declare no financial support for the submitted work. All authors are supported by the National Institute on Aging and National Cancer Institute. KGV has received funding for investigator initiated research on financial incentives for medication adherence from Pfizer and the Aetna Foundation and has served as a consultant on financial incentives for McKinsey, Ascension Health, Vitalspring, and CVS Caremark. SDH, DAA, and KGV all believe in the importance of experiments to understand whether and how financial incentives (including commitment contracts) influence health related behaviours.

Figures

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How well do commitment contracts compare with other methods for promoting the same behaviours?
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