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Keep it Off

Keep it Off

Lottery-based incentives for weight-loss maintenance

Project status

Pilot/study with results

Collaborators

William Yancy, MD 

Pamela Shaw, PhD 

Kevin Volpp, MD, PhD

Innovation leads

Funding

National Institute on Aging

External partners

Weight Watchers

Opportunity 

Obesity is one of the leading causes of preventable death in the United States due to its prevalence and connection to serious health conditions such as heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancer.   

Identifying effective strategies for treating obesity is a clinical challenge and a public health priority. Although various approaches exist to help individuals achieve initial weight loss, weight loss maintenance has proven much more difficult.  

Intervention 

A team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania leveraged Way to Health to compare the efficacy of different financial incentives for weight loss maintenance. 

Approximately 200 adults enrolled in the WW program (formerly Weight Watchers) were recruited to participate in the trial. All participants were given a wireless weight scale and randomly assigned to one of the groups below. 

  1. Daily self-weighing and text messaging feedback (control), 

  1. Daily self-weighing and text messaging feedback combined with a direct monetary incentive (direct payment),  

  1. Or daily self-weighing and text messaging feedback combined with a lottery-based monetary incentive (lottery). 

The intervention lasted six months, and all participants were observed without intervention for a six-month follow-up period.

Impact 

Compared with the active control of daily texting based on daily home weighing, lottery-based and direct monetary incentives provided no additional benefit for weight loss maintenance. 

Way to Health Specs

Learn more about the platform
Activity monitoring
Arms and randomization
Criteria-based rules
Dashboard view
Device integration
eConsent
EHR integration
Email
Enrollment
Gamification
Incentives
IVR
Multiple languages
Patient portal messaging
Patient-reported outcomes capture
Photo messaging
Remote patient monitoring
Schedule-based rules
Survey administration
Two-way texting
Vitals monitoring