Katagiri Wataru, Shimono Masaaki, Eguchi Shunsuke, Takebayashi Masaki, Iekushi Kazuma
Medical Affairs Division, Novartis Pharma K.K., Tokyo, Japan.
Novartis Health Insurance Association, Tokyo, Japan.
Environ Occup Health Pract. 2025 May 28;7(1). doi: 10.1539/eohp.2024-0017. eCollection 2025.
Hypertension and dyslipidemia are major risk factors of cardiovascular diseases. Nevertheless, many people do not consider these risk factors important, even if they are noted during their annual health checkups and left untreated for a long time. Here, we report a novel nudge method to encourage people who had these risk factors and examine the resultant changes in the willingness to undergo secondary health examinations.
Employees of Novartis Pharma K.K. and its affiliated companies who had elevated blood pressure and/or lipid levels during annual health checkups were allocated to either the social nudge group (postcards were sent to their spouses) or the control group (postcards were sent to themselves) after confirming their agreement to receive postcards in order to encourage them to take secondary health examination. A web-based survey via email was conducted before and after sending the postcards to understand the willingness to undergo secondary health examinations.
Regarding the willingness to undergo the secondary health examinations, a significant difference was observed in the social nudge group (n=58) before (12.1%) and after (46.6%) the postcard was sent (<0.0001), and no significant difference was observed in the control group (n=9, =1.0000). The proportion of employees who underwent secondary health examinations did not increase significantly in either group.
This study suggested that a social nudge via spouse has a possibility of increasing the willingness to undergo secondary health examinations at low cost. To increase the proportion of undergoing it, combinations with other nudges might be necessary.
高血压和血脂异常是心血管疾病的主要危险因素。然而，许多人并不认为这些危险因素很重要，即使它们在年度健康检查中被发现，也长期未得到治疗。在此，我们报告一种新颖的助推方法，以鼓励有这些危险因素的人，并研究其对接受二次健康检查意愿的影响。
在年度健康检查中血压和/或血脂水平升高的诺华制药株式会社及其附属公司员工，在确认同意接收明信片后，被分配到社会助推组（明信片寄给其配偶）或对照组（明信片寄给自己），以鼓励他们进行二次健康检查。在发送明信片前后通过电子邮件进行基于网络的调查，以了解接受二次健康检查的意愿。
关于接受二次健康检查的意愿，社会助推组（n = 58）在明信片发送前（12.1%）和发送后（46.6%）观察到显著差异（<0.0001），而对照组（n = 9，P = 1.0000）未观察到显著差异。两组中接受二次健康检查的员工比例均未显著增加。
本研究表明，通过配偶进行社会助推有可能以低成本提高接受二次健康检查的意愿。为了提高接受检查的比例，可能需要与其他助推方式相结合。
