Group Incentives and the Take – Up of the Flu Vaccine

The take-up of the flu vaccine has important benefits, especially among health care workers (HCW) who are in close contact with populations most vulnerable to the flu such as infants, the elderly, and those with chronic conditions and compromised health. Many health care organizations, especially hospitals, have mandated flu vaccination for their workers for years, and others have done so more recently as the flu vaccination rate is used as a publically reported quality measure of care. However, while the take-up of the flu shot by HCW has increased nationwide, it is less than the recommended 90% vaccination rate. Previous experimental work with students has found that financial incentives have increased the take-up of the flu shot (Bronchetti, Huffman, Magenheim, 2015). We study an incentive scheme aimed at residents in a Midwestern medical school that would pay $100 (as a gift card) to each individual resident if they collectively reached a 95% flu vaccination rate by the end of the early flu season on November 1st. While the vaccination target was met and the incentive distributed, we study whether the time to vaccination was shortened from the previous year, if there was a bunching at the deadline, and whether there were any differences compared to nurses, a similar group of workers who was not eligible for the gift card, but also benefitted from the availability of free flu shots and on site walk-in clinics at the hospital.