Behavioral Economics and the Promotion of Health Among Aging Populations

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There has been a significant increase in research applying behavioral economics and related behavioral science to health. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a workshop June 4-5, 2018, to discuss behavioral economics research with the goal of extending such research to be of benefit to older and middle-aged adults. The goals of the workshop were (1) to share knowledge about successful applications; (2) to encourage investigations that will deepen understanding of the specific conditions, people, and contexts for which such applications are more and less effective; and (3) to identify the mechanisms underlying the interventions. Specifically, there was a focus on considering interventions that could generate long-term benefits in areas of interest to the National Institute on Aging, such as decreasing sedentary behavior, promoting volunteering and social engagement, improving medical regimen adherence, and reducing inappropriate use of opioids and using opioids when medically necessary. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

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12 pages · 8.5 x 11 ·
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-47953-3
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17226/25190

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National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Behavioral Economics and the Promotion of Health Among Aging Populations: Proceedings of a Workshop—in Brief. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

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Laura L. Carstensen

Laura Carstensen is Professor of Psychology, the Fairleigh S. Dickinson Jr. Professor in Public Policy, and founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity at Stanford University. She is best known for socioemotional selectivity theory, a life-span theory of motivation. For more than twenty years her research has been supported by the National Institute on Aging and she was honored with a MERIT award in 2005. Her most current empirical research focuses on ways in which motivational changes influence cognitive processing. Dr. Carstensen is a fellow in the Association for Psychological Science, the American Psychological Association and the Gerontological Society of America. She is a member of the MacArthur Foundation’s Research Network on an Aging Society and serves on the National Advisory Council on Aging to NIA. Carstensen has won numerous awards, including the Kleemeier Award, The Kalish Award for Innovative Research and the Distinguished Mentorship Award from the Gerontological Society of America, as well as the Master Mentor Award from the American Psychological Association. She was selected as a Guggenheim Fellow in 2003. In 2011, she authored A Long Bright Future: Happiness, Health, and Financial Security in an Age of Increased Longevity. Carstensen is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and is currently serving on the Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences. She has chaired two studies for the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, resulting in the noted reports The Aging Mind and When I’m 64. Carstensen received a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from West Virginia University. She holds an honorary doctorate from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.

Eric Johnson

Eric Johnson is the inaugural holder of the Norman Eig Chair of Business, and Director of the Center for Decision Sciences at the University of Columbia. He was previously a senior visiting scholar at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, taught at Carnegie Mellon, was a visiting professor at the Sloan School at MIT, and was the inaugural holder of the David W. Hauck Chair in Marketing, and a Professor of Operations and Information Management and Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. His research examines the interface between Behavioral Decision Research, Economics and the decisions made by consumers, managers, and their implications for public policy, markets and marketing. Among other topics, Johnson has explored how the way options are presented to decision-makers affect their choices in areas such as organ donation, the choice of environmentally friendly products, and investments. He has been an Associate Editor of the Journal of Consumer Psychology, and is a member of several editorial boards as well as the Senior Editor for Decision Sciences at Behavioral Science and Policy and an Editor at Frontiers in Decision Neuroscience. He has co-authored two books: Decision Research: A Field Guide, published by Sage Publications and The Adaptive Decision-Maker published by Cambridge University Press, and is currently working on a book on choice architecture. He has a PhD. in Psychology from Carnegie-Mellon University.

Kevin G. Volpp

Kevin Volpp is Janet and John Haas President’s Distinguished Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy; professor of medicine; professor of health care management, and director of the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics at the Leonard Davis Institute, all at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Volpp’s work focuses on developing and testing innovative ways of applying insights from behavioral economics in improving patient health behavior and affecting provider performance. He leads the Penn LDI Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics, 1 of 2 NIH Centers on behavioral economics and health in the United States as well as (with Karen Glanz) the Penn CDC Prevention Research Center. He has published more than 175 papers based on work with a wide range of employers, insurers, health systems, and consumer companies in the US and overseas in testing the effectiveness of different behavioral economic strategies in improving health behavior and health outcomes. His work has garnered numerous awards including career achievement awards from NIH for his work on social and behavioral sciences and election into the National Academy of Medicine. He has a PhD in Health Economics, Public Policy and Management and an M.D., both from the University of Pennsylvania.

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There has been a significant increase in research applying behavioral economics and related behavioral science to health. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a workshop June 4-5, 2018, to discuss behavioral economics research with the goal of extending such research to be of benefit to older and middle-aged adults. The goals of the workshop were (1) to share knowledge about successful applications; (2) to encourage investigations that will deepen understanding of the specific conditions, people, and contexts for which such applications are more and less effective; and (3) to identify the mechanisms underlying the interventions. Specifically, there was a focus on considering interventions that could generate long-term benefits in areas of interest to the National Institute on Aging, such as decreasing sedentary behavior, promoting volunteering and social engagement, improving medical regimen adherence, and reducing inappropriate use of opioids and using opioids when medically necessary. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

Publication information

12 pages · 8.5 x 11 ·
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-47953-3
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17226/25190

Suggested citation

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Behavioral Economics and the Promotion of Health Among Aging Populations: Proceedings of a Workshop—in Brief. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Import this citation to:

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Behavioral Economics and the Promotion of Health Among Aging Populations: A Workshop

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