Michigan should swap its faltering vaccine lotto for an inoculation campaign backed by evidence, a Crain's reporter writes in a weekend opinion piece.
The state's vaccination rate has reportedly ticked up just a fraction of a percent since Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's July 1 rollout of a raffle-style incentive that gives shot-takers a chance at $5 million in cash prizes. Though her office says a Detroit chamber survey found 5.6 percent of respondents would be motivated by a lottery, research on a similar Ohio incentive found no evidence it helped boost vaccination rates.
More effective would be a guaranteed incentive, writes Crain's' Dustin Walsh.
The lottery, here and elsewhere, is a failure in understanding behavioral economics. Humans do react to financial incentives. But only when that money is guaranteed — like, say, a gift card once they've completed vaccination.
For instance, a 2014 study on incentivizing chlamydia screening among students in the U.K. found gift cards work. The control group was given no financial incentive, and only 1.5 percent of the student population received a screening. When a lottery with a prize of 200 British pounds was introduced, the rate climbed to 2.8 percent. When the population was offered a guaranteed five-pound gift card for screening, the rate jumped to 22.8 percent.
Now, Michigan's $5 million lottery program is cheaper. Spread that money evenly to the roughly 608,000 eligible residents needed to get to that 70 percent goal, and they'd get $8 and some change. Offering a $25 gift card would cost the state $15.2 million if everyone took it up.
Workplace mandates are also effective, he writes, citing a Texas health system where more than 99 percent of 26,000 workers received the vaccine.
As of Saturday, 62.5 of Michiganders had been inoculated with at least one shot.
