WeightLossIncentive4R Documentation

Do Financial Incentives Improve Weight Loss? (4 Months)

Description

Weight loss after four months with/without a financial incentive

Format

A dataset with 36 observations on the following 2 variables.

WeightLoss weight loss (in pounds) after 4 months
Group Treatment group: Control or Incentive

Details

Researchers investigated whether financial incentives would help people lose weight more successfully. Some participants in the study were randomly assigned to a treatment group that was offered financial incentives for achieving weight loss goals, while others were assigned to a control group that did not use financial incentives. All participants were monitored over a four month period and the net weight change (Before - After in pounds) at the end of this period was recorded for each individual. Then the individuals were left alone for three months with a followup weight check at the seven-month mark to see whether weight losses persisted after the original four months of treatment. This dataset has only the non-missing 4-month data. The 7-month data are in WeightLossIncentive7 and both measurements (including missing values) are in WeightLossIncentive.

Source

“Financial incentive-based approaches for weight loss," Journal of the American Medical Association by Volpp, John, Troxel, et. al., Vol. 200, no. 22, pp 2631-2637, (Dec. 2008)