Text messages are an effective way to remind unvaccinated people to schedule an appointment and show up for their COVID-19 shot, according to a study published by Nature.
Vaccination rates among people who received a text message about scheduling their appointment, and to attend, were 84% higher than those for people who did not get the “nudge,” the data showed.
The field trial showed that text-message ‘nudges’ encourage people to get vaccinated against COVID-19. To be effective, nudge approaches such as this must combine three aspects: they must prompt, enable and motivate behavior.
The text message-based program boosted vaccination rates at one site to 18% of eligible patients from 14% in the first month alone, the researchers said.
Co-author Dr. Daniel M. Croymans, a primary care physician at UCLA Health in Los Angeles, told UPI that “Our findings suggest that we need to do more to reach out to [people] who are still not vaccinated. We should better utilize technology to get them the right information at the right time to reduce hesitancy.”
For the study, the researchers enrolled 100,000 UCLA Health patients eligible for COVID-19 vaccine in February, mostly people age 65 years and older with a pre-existing condition. All of the participants had provided their cellphone number to the hospital system.After initial notification of eligibility for the vaccine, participants received one of four types of text message or no text reminder.
The text “nudge” was either a simple text reminder, a simple text reminder with an informational video, a text crafted with “ownership language” such as “Claim your dose” or a text with both ownership language and the informational video, according to the researchers.
Among patients who did not receive a text reminder, 7% booked an appointment within the first six days of the study period, the data showed.
The TASBIA™ Bottom Line
Text messaging has been found to be an effective way to increase participation by consumers across a wide variety of industries.
It’s no different in the pubic health sphere. To quote Dr. Croymans: “A simple message using behaviorally informed language is an effective way to help people overcome the barriers to scheduling their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. If you can get them to their first vaccine they will very likely get their second vaccine.”
See Nature Article, Text-message nudges encourage COVID vaccination (August 2, 2021)
CITATION: Dai, H., Saccardo, S., Han, M.A. et al. Behavioral Nudges Increase COVID-19 Vaccinations. Nature (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03843-2
