Points 4 Life United States Research (2009~Ongoing)

Collaborators: American Heart Association

Faculty: Dr. Larry Starr and Dr. John Pourdehnad; Dr. Allan Braslow, Organizational Dynamics Exchange Network; Dr. Vinay Nadkarni, Center for Resuscitation Science and Penn School of Medicine

Description: The United Kingdom National Health Service (NHS) and the Manchester City Council have joined forces in a joint venture to form the Points4Life project which has a mission to improve health and tackle health inequalities in Manchester, a city with the worst health in England, including one of the lowest life expectancy in the country. It will work in the same way as many of the well-known point schemes in the airline and other markets. Members of the public will join the scheme and will earn points when they engage in healthy behaviors. They will then be able to redeem those points for healthy products and services. Outcomes include increasing physical activity, eating healthy diet, maintaining healthy weight, stopping smoking, limiting alcohol consumption, and increasing health screening.

Our project will be the US pilot project and will have two components: First, to what degree can a version of Points4Life be enacted in one or more Philadelphia-area communities? Second, when enacted, to what degree can we measure similar outcomes?