A Survey of Nudges for Improving Health Outcomes

Nudges are being employed worldwide to influence behavioral changes to achieve successful implementation of programs and policies. Apart from emerging as a low-cost method, nudges do not interfere with the freedom of the individual. Their effectiveness lies in the way they change the choice architecture of an individual such that in the given context, the person moves towards the optimal decision herself. In this article, we undertake a survey of the literature on nudges to understand their contribution to improving health outcomes. We find that although result on the degree of impact varies across studies, studies using a combination of nudges do ensure greater success.