Nudging Health

Zamzow, Richard J. Zeckhauser--Jon S. Vernick, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, coeditor of Reducing Gun Violence in America: Informing Policy with Evidence and Analysis "Springer Journal"

When it was published in 2008, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness quickly became one of the most influential books in modern economics and politics. Within a short time, it had inspired whole government departments in the US and UK, and others as far afield as Singapore. One of the keys to Nudge’s success is Thaler and Sunstein’s ability to create a detailed and persuasive case for their take on economic decision-making. Nudge is not a book packed with original findings or data; instead it is a careful and systematic synthesis of decades of research into behavioral economics. The discipline challenges much conventional economic thought – which works on the basis that, overall, humans make rational decisions – by focusing instead on the ‘irrational’ cognitive biases that affect our decision making. These seemingly in-built biases mean that certain kinds of economic decision-making are predictably irrational. Thaler and Sunstein prove themselves experts at creating persuasive arguments and dealing effectively with counter-arguments. They conclude that if governments understand these cognitive biases, they can ‘nudge’ us into making better decisions for ourselves. Entertaining as well as smart, Nudge shows the full range of reasoning skills that go into making a persuasive argument.

Now available: Nudge: The Final Edition The original edition of the multimillion-copy New York Times bestseller by the winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, Richard H. Thaler, and Cass R. Sunstein: a revelatory look at how we make decisions—for fans of Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit, James Clear’s Atomic Habits, and Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow Named a Best Book of the Year by The Economist and the Financial Times Every day we make choices—about what to buy or eat, about financial investments or our children’s health and education, even about the causes we champion or the planet itself. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. Nudge is about how we make these choices and how we can make better ones. Using dozens of eye-opening examples and drawing on decades of behavioral science research, Nobel Prize winner Richard H. Thaler and Harvard Law School professor Cass R. Sunstein show that no choice is ever presented to us in a neutral way, and that we are all susceptible to biases that can lead us to make bad decisions. But by knowing how people think, we can use sensible “choice architecture” to nudge people toward the best decisions for ourselves, our families, and our society, without restricting our freedom of choice.

A deep look at the role of behavioral “nudges” for improving health. Winner of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title of the Choice ACRL Behavioral nudges are everywhere: calorie counts on menus, automated text reminders to encourage medication adherence, a reminder bell when a driver’s seatbelt isn’t fastened. Designed to help people make better health choices, these reminders have become so commonplace that they often go unnoticed. In Nudging Health, forty-five experts in behavioral science and health policy from across academia, government, and private industry come together to explore whether and how these tools are effective in improving health outcomes. Behavioral science has swept the fields of economics and law through the study of nudges, cognitive biases, and decisional heuristics—but it has only recently begun to impact the conversation on health care. Nudging Health wrestles with some of the thorny philosophical issues, legal limits, and conceptual questions raised by behavioral science as applied to health law and policy. The volume frames the fundamental issues surrounding health nudges by addressing ethical questions. Does cost-sharing for health expenditures cause patients to make poor decisions? Is it right to make it difficult for people to opt out of having their organs harvested for donation when they die? Are behavioral nudges paternalistic? The contributors examine specific applications of behavioral science, including efforts to address health care costs, improve vaccination rates, and encourage better decision-making by physicians. They wrestle with questions regarding the doctor-patient relationship and defaults in healthcare while engaging with larger, timely questions of healthcare reform. Nudging Health is the first multi-voiced assessment of behavioral economics and health law to span such a wide array of issues—from the Affordable Care Act to prescription drugs. Contributors: David A. Asch, Jerry Avorn, Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby, Alexander M. Capron, Niteesh K. Choudhry, I. Glenn Cohen, Sarah Conly, Gregory Curfman, Khaled El Emam, Barbara J. Evans, Nir Eyal, Andrea Freeman, Alan M. Garber, Jonathan Gingerich, Michael Hallsworth, Jim Hawkins, David Huffman, David A. Hyman, Julika Kaplan, Aaron S. Kesselheim, Nina A. Kohn, Russell Korobkin, Jeffrey T. Kullgren, Matthew J.B. Lawrence, George Loewenstein, Holly Fernandez Lynch, Ester Moher, Abigail R. Moncrieff, David Orentlicher, Manisha Padi, Christopher T. Robertson, Ameet Sarpatwari, Aditi P. Sen, Neel Shah, Zainab Shipchandler, Anna D. Sinaiko, Donna Spruijt-Metz, Cass R. Sunstein, Thomas S. Ulen, Kristen Underhill, Kevin G. Volpp, Mark D. White, David V. Yokum, Jennifer L. Zamzow, Richard J. Zeckhauser

This collection challenges the popular but abstract concept of nudging, demonstrating the real-world application of behavioral economics in policy-making and technology. Groundbreaking and practical, it considers the existing political incentives and regulatory institutions that shape the environment in which behavioral policy-making occurs, as well as alternatives to government nudges already provided by the market. The contributions discuss the use of regulations and technology to help consumers overcome their behavioral biases and make better choices, considering the ethical questions of government and market nudges and the uncertainty inherent in designing effective nudges. Four case studies - on weight loss, energy efficiency, consumer finance, and health care - put the discussion of the efficiency of nudges into concrete, recognizable terms. A must-read for researchers studying the public policy applications of behavioral economics, this book will also appeal to practicing lawmakers and regulators.

Behavioral economics sees “nudges” as ways to encourage people to re-evaluate their priorities in such a way that they voluntarily change their behavior, leading to personal and social benefits. This book examines nudging as a tool for influencing human behavior in health policy. The authors investigate the contemporary scientific discourse on nudging and enrich it with an ontological, epistemological and praxeological analysis of human behavior. On the basis of detailed analyses of the literature and a systemic review, nudging tools are defined in the paradigm of prospect theory. In addition to the theoretical contribution, the book also examines and offers suggestions on the practice of health policy regarding obesity, malnutrition, and especially type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Behavioral economics has potential to offer novel solutions to some of today's most pressing public health problems: How do we persuade people to eat healthy and lose weight? How can health professionals communicate health risks in a way that is heeded? How can food labeling be modified to inform healthy food choices? Behavioral Economics and Public Health is the first book to apply the groundbreaking insights of behavioral economics to the persisting problems of health behaviors and behavior change. In addition to providing a primer on the behavioral economics principles that are most relevant to public health, this book offers details on how these principles can be employed to mitigating the world's greatest health threats, including obesity, smoking, risky sexual behavior, and excessive drinking. With contributions from an international team of scholars from psychology, economics, marketing, public health, and medicine, this book is a trailblazing new approach to the most difficult and important problems of our time.