Add Competition to Boost Benefits of Wearables

If you use wearables with clients, consider adding competitive challenges to improve results. University of Pennsylvania and Deloitte Consulting LLP researchers found that simply giving wearables to people in the workplace did not increase physical activity; the key was to add fun and competition.

“We found that a behaviorally designed gamification program led to significant increases in physical activity compared to a control group that used wearable devices alone,” said lead study author Mitesh Patel, MD, MBA, assistant professor of Medicine and Health Care Management. “During the 9-month trial, the average person in the competition arm walked about 100 miles more than the average person in the control.”

Find the study in JAMA Internal Medicine (2019; doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2019.3505).