Sustaining the Reach of a Scalable Weight Loss Intervention Through Financial Incentives

This study seeks to assess how different incentive strategies may reduce the initial attrition gap when implementing weight management in a primary care clinic predominantly serving African American patients. This will be done through an innovative research-practice partnership involving primary care, research expertise, and a small business. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of four financial incentive conditions respectively tied to: weight loss, weigh-ins, weigh-ins and weight-loss, and incentive choice. Participants will be followed for 3 and 6 months to assess program reach, sustaining the reach after initial weigh-in, and weight loss outcomes based on records on participant enrollment and subsequent weigh-ins automatically collected through a kiosk at the clinic.

The proposed study "Sustaining the Reach of a Scalable Weight Loss Intervention through Financial Incentives: an Exploratory Randomized Trial" seeks to assess how the use of different incentive strategies may reduce the initial attrition gap when implementing weight management in a primary care clinic predominantly serving African American patients through an innovative research-practice partnership involving primary care, research expertise, and a small business. The sample will include approximately 200 persons ages 19+ from Nebraska Medicine or the greater Omaha community. The inclusion criteria are (1) age 19+ years; (2) are obese (BMI \>=30) or overweight (BMI \>=25 yet smaller than 30); (3) have internet access. Following the completion of an automated informed consent embedded within the program registration using a kiosk placed at the Fontenelle Clinic, we plan to conduct a 4-arm, pragmatic randomized controlled trial (RCT) that will randomly assign overweight/obese patients at the Nebraska Medicine Fontenelle clinic to one of four financial incentive conditions respectively tied to: weight loss, weigh-ins, weigh-ins and weight-loss, and incentive choice, following the completion of an automated informed consent embedded within the program registration and initial weigh-in. Participants will be followed for 3 and 6 months to assess program reach, sustaining the reach after initial weigh-in, and weight loss outcomes based on records on participant enrollment and subsequent weigh-ins automatically collected through a kiosk placed at the Fontenelle clinic.