Monetary incentives increase COVID-19 vaccinations.
rct · Level II
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 34618594.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/science.abm0475 and PMC identifier 10765478.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
The stalling of COVID-19 vaccination rates threatens public health. To increase vaccination rates, governments across the world are considering the use of monetary incentives. Here we present evidence about the effect of guaranteed payments on COVID-19 vaccination uptake. We ran a large preregistered randomized controlled trial (with 8286 participants) in Sweden and linked the data to population-wide administrative vaccination records. We found that modest monetary payments of 24 US dollars (200 Swedish kronor) increased vaccination rates by 4.2 percentage points (<i>P</i> = 0.005), from a baseline rate of 71.6%. By contrast, behavioral nudges increased stated intentions to become vaccinated but had only small and not statistically significant impacts on vaccination rates. The results highlight the potential of modest monetary incentives to raise vaccination rates.
Medical subject headings
- COVID-19
- COVID-19 Vaccines
- Intention
- Reimbursement, Incentive
- Vaccination