Trial reportPreventive medicine2016
Social norms and financial incentives to promote employees' healthy food choices: A randomized controlled trial.
Trial report in Preventive medicine, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT01604499 (Building on a Point-of-purchase Intervention to Encourage Healthy Food Choices), which is not on this map. Cited by 30 papers, 7 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Building on a Point-of-purchase Intervention to Encourage Healthy Food Choices
Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 7 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effectiveness of social norms messaging approaches for improving health behaviours in developed countries.Nature human behaviour · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Interventions to Promote Healthy Meals in Full-Service Restaurants and Canteens: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Nutrients · 2021Pooled it
- Environmental interventions to reduce the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and their effects on health.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2019Pooled it
- Social marketing including financial incentive programs at worksite cafeterias for preventing obesity: a systematic review.Systematic reviews · 2019Pooled it
- Use and effectiveness of behavioural economics in interventions for lifestyle risk factors of non-communicable diseases: a systematic review with policy implications.Perspectives in public health · 2018Pooled it
- Pricing Strategies to Encourage Availability, Purchase, and Consumption of Healthy Foods and Beverages: A Systematic Review.Preventing chronic disease · 2017Pooled it
- Short-Term Effect of a Health Promotion Intervention Based on the Electronic 12-Hour Dietary Recall (e-12HR) Smartphone App on Adherence to the Mediterranean Diet Among Spanish Primary Care Professionals: Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2024Trial
- Employees' Baseline Food Choices and the Effect of a Workplace Intervention to Promote Healthy Eating: Secondary Analysis of the ChooseWell 365 Randomized Controlled Trial.Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics · 2023Trial
- The association of impulsivity with effects of the ChooseWell 365 workplace nudge intervention on diet and weight.Translational behavioral medicine · 2023Trial
- Health Literacy, Numeracy, and Health Promotion: A Secondary Analysis of the Choosewell 365 Workplace Trial.American journal of preventive medicine · 2022Trial
- Automated Behavioral Workplace Intervention to Prevent Weight Gain and Improve Diet: The ChooseWell 365 Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2021Trial
- A randomized controlled trial study of the acceptability, feasibility, and preliminary impact of SITA (SMS as an Incentive To Adhere): a mobile technology-based intervention informed by behavioral economics to improve ART adherence among youth in Uganda.BMC infectious diseases · 2020Trial
- Traffic-light labels and financial incentives to reduce sugar-sweetened beverage purchases by low-income Latino families: a randomized controlled trial.Public health nutrition · 2018Trial
- Salutogenic Principles in Workplace Health Promotion Interventions: A Scoping Review.Journal of prevention (2022) · 2026Article
- Codevelopment of a Digital Screening and Intervention Tool to Improve Lifestyle Habits in Children: Focus Group Study With Parents and Clinicians.JMIR pediatrics and parenting · 2026Article
- Dietary Social Norms in School and Home Settings and Their Influence on Children's Healthy Eating: Short-Term Longitudinal Analysis.Journal of prevention (2022) · 2026Article
- A Scoping Review of Choice Architecture to Promote Healthy Nutrition in Health and Care Settings.Journal of human nutrition and dietetics : the official journal of the British Dietetic Association · 2025Article
- Evaluating the social acceptability of the Re-Connect concept: A smartphone-based, nonfinancial, contingency management intervention.Journal of applied behavior analysis · 2025Article
- Behavioural economics intervention to implement a nutrition ranking system in food pantries: Be Well cluster randomised controlled trial protocol.BMJ public health · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectivePopulation-level strategies to improve healthy food choices are needed for obesity prevention. We conducted a randomized controlled trial of 2672 employees at the Massachusetts General Hospital who were regular customers of the hospital cafeteria with all items labeled green (healthy), yellow (less healthy), or red (unhealthy) to determine if social norm (peer-comparison) feedback with or without financial incentives increased employees' healthy food choices.
methodsParticipants were randomized in 2012 to three arms: 1) monthly letter with social norm feedback about healthy food purchases, comparing employee to "all" and to "healthiest" customers (feedback-only); 2) monthly letter with social norm feedback plus small financial incentive for increasing green purchases (feedback-incentive); or 3) no contact (control). The main outcome was change in proportion of green-labeled purchases at the end of 3-month intervention. Post-hoc analyses examined linear trends.
resultsAt baseline, the proportion of green-labeled purchases (50%) did not differ between arms. At the end of the 3-month intervention, the percentage increase in green-labeled purchases was larger in the feedback-incentive arm compared to control (2.2% vs. 0.1%, P=0.03), but the two intervention arms were not different. The rate of increase in green-labeled purchases was higher in both feedback-only (P=0.04) and feedback-incentive arms (P=0.004) compared to control. At the end of a 3-month wash-out, there were no differences between control and intervention arms.
conclusionsSocial norms plus small financial incentives increased employees' healthy food choices over the short-term. Future research will be needed to assess the impact of this relatively low-cost intervention on employees' food choices and weight over the long-term.
trial registrationClinical Trials.gov: NCT01604499.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.