Three of the best-known health messages are eating five portions a day of fruit and vegetables, getting 150 minutes of exercise a week and quitting smoking. But what evidence is there that these have worked?

Our work published this week analyses all 111 cases studies of behavioral techniques used by governments compiled by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). Our analysis demonstrates that none of the techniques used have scientific proven effectiveness.

To provide practitioners with useful information about how to promote proenvironmental behavior (PEB), a meta-analysis was performed on 87 published reports containing 253 experimental treatments that measured an observed, not self-reported, behavioral outcome. Most studies combined multiple treatments, and this confounding precluded definitive conclusions about which individual treatments are most effective. Treatments that included cognitive dissonance, goal setting, social modeling, and prompts provided the overall largest effect sizes (Hedge’s g > 0.60).

Through June 2004, the campaign is unlikely to have had favorable effects on youths and may have had delayed unfavorable effects.

ELH research

Lifestyle Gamification Case Stats and Figures OPower: reduced measurable energy consumption by over $100M Aetna: increased daily healthy activities by 50% with an average engagement of 14 minutes on the site ClinicalAdvisor.com: embedded a social platform that improved user submission by 300%, comments by 400%, and Slideshow Visualizations by 53% Bottle Bank Arcade: gamified bottle bank was used 50 times more than conventional bottle bank. The World’s Deepest Bin: 132% more trash collected compared to conventional bin Piano Stairs: 66% more of people use the stairs, if they can produce music with it Speed Camera Lottery: a lottery system that causes a 22% reduction of driving speed Toilette Seat: 44% of increase in lifting the toilet seat when urinating Nike: used gamified feedback to drive over 5,000,000 users to beat their personal fitness goals every day of the year Recycle Bank grew a community of 4 million members by providing a gamified recycling platform. Chevrolet Volt: uses a green/amber indicator to give drivers visual feedback of their driving style and reduced the number of people exceeding the speed limit by 53%

MARS - Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS) - Mobile health app engagement, functionality, aesthetics, and information quality

Increases in condom use were larger for longer campaigns and in nations that scored lower on the human development index. Increases in transmission knowledge were larger to the extent that respondents reported greater campaign exposure, for more recent campaigns, and for nations that scored lower on the human development index.

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