Patient Engagement

New wellness study shows just how sticky wearables can be, even among seniors

The interest in improving the sustained use of wearables goes beyond employer programs, according to the Annals of Internal Medicine study. It also applies to data collection for precision medicine initiatives to better target interventions.

wearables

Quantifying the effectiveness of wearables to increase activity within the framework of a payer or employer wellness program has been the source of more than a few studies. Can financial incentives from these groups also steer participants to the desired outcome? Will participants be sufficiently engaged to use these wearables over a long period of time? What are some of the characteristics of the longer term users?

This area has been a topic of interest for Dr. Mitesh Patel, an assistant professor of Medicine and Health Care Management at University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and the Wharton School as well as director of Penn Medicine’s Nudge Unit.

But the interest in improving the sustained use of wearables goes beyond employer programs, according to the Annals of Internal Medicine study. It also applies to data collection for precision medicine initiatives to better target interventions.

In what Patel said is the largest study of its kind to evaluate the stickiness of wearables in a step counting program, 4.4 million Humana wellness program members were invited to take part. Of those, 55,000 actually downloaded the relevant app for the study, which was published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Researchers analyzed data for a two-year period from 2014-2015 and tracked when participants first activated their activity tracker, how frequently the device was used in the first six months following activation, average daily step counts and sociodemographic characteristics, according to a news release from Penn.

In a phone interview Patel said he was struck that although 0.2 percent used the devices in year one, that rose to 1.2 percent in year two. In six months, 80 percent of the people who started using the device were still using it.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the majority of the people who took an active role in the study tended to be young and had higher-incomes than people who didn’t use the devices. But what struck Patel was that although only 0.1 percent of people older than 65 activated a device, 90 percent of these participants were still using them six months later. There may be fewer wearables users who are seniors but they stick to them, which reflects the study’s findings.

“We found that though use grew over time, it really varied depending on individual characteristics like age and income,” Patel said in the news release. “We also found that once someone started using an activity tracker, sustained use at six months was high at 80 percent.”

Although 60 wearables could be used in the program, Fitbit trackers dominated and accounted for 76 percent of the trackers used by participants. Its nearest was Apple’s devices at 9 percent, the release noted.

Fitbit came out with a report of its own on best practices for employer wellness programs. It has also profiled users by their “fitness personas” — the types of activities that tend to resonate with them based on their age and how to best engage them in an employer wellness setting.

Amy McDonough, Senior Vice President, Strategy and Operations, Fitbit Health Solutions responded by email to questions about how employer wellness programs could be better designed to improve participation across a diverse set of ages and preferences. She disagreed that age had an impact on fitness level.

“Fitness level doesn’t necessarily correlate with age so it may make more sense to define your workforce according to fitness personas rather than generations. This perspective can help you connect with employees based on their health and fitness goals, regardless of what age they are. It’s also helpful to think about intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, playing to the different personas with incentives.”

Photo: fandijki, Getty Images

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