Kevin Volpp
- Founders President’s Distinguished Professor, Medical Ethics and Health Policy
- Director, Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics, Leonard Davis Institute
- Professor of Medicine
- Professor of Health Care Management
Contact Information
- Primary Email:
volpp70@wharton.upenn.edu - Office Phone:
215-573-0720 - Office Fax Phone:
215-573-8778
- office Address:
Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics
1120 Blockley Hall 423 Guardian Drive
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6021
Research Interests: aetna foundation, aramark, cdc, cvs caremark, discovery (south africa), financial incentives, hewlett foundation, mckinsey, nhlbi, nia, niddk, research interests and funding sources:behavioral economics and health, rwj
Links: CV, Personal Website
Overview
Dr. Volpp is the founding Director of the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics (CHIBE), Division Chief of Health Policy for the Department of Medical Ethics and Policy, and the Founders President’s Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine and Health Care Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has led CHIBE since its inception turning it into an entity that involves more than 90 faculty members and trainees across the University of Pennsylvania and which was 1 of 2 original NIH Centers nationally on behavioral economics and health.
Dr. Volpp’s work focuses on developing and testing innovative ways of applying insights from behavioral economics in improving patient health behavior and increasing value in the health system by influencing provider performance. He has competitively been awarded more than $70 million to lead projects with a variety of employers, insurers, health systems, and consumer companies in testing the impact of different behavioral economic strategies on behavior.
Dr. Volpp has published more than 250 articles, book chapters, and commentaries, and his work has served as the foundation for numerous widely implemented programs such as benefit design initiatives using financial incentives for smoking cessation among GE and CVS employees, a prescription refill synchronization program for Humana members, a simple health insurance plan called “Humana Simplicity”, and an ‘enhanced active choice’ approach used among tens of millions of CVS members to increase the ease of receiving automated medication refills.
Dr. Volpp’s work has been recognized by a number of career achievement awards including the Matilda White Riley Award by the Office of Social and Behavioral Science at NIH, the John Eisenberg Award from the Society of General Internal Medicine, and the Association for Clinical and Translational Science Distinguished Investigator Award for Clinical and Translational Science. Volpp is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, an editorial board member for the NEJM Catalyst, and a principal of the behavioral economics consulting firm VAL Health.
Education
PhD, University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) 1998; MD, University of Pennsylvania 1998; AB, Harvard College, 1989
Recent Consulting/Advisory Boards
CVS Caremark, VAL Health
World Economic Forum Global Advisory Council on Behavior
Editorial Boards
JAMA Contributing writer
Health Care: Delivery Science and Innovation
Research
Colman Humphrey, Dylan Small, Shane T. Jensen, Kevin Volpp, David A. Asch, Jingsan Zhu, Andrea B. Troxel (2019), Modeling Lottery Incentives for Daily Adherence, Statistics in Medicine, 38 (15), pp. 2847-2867.
Maguire Herriman, Kevin Volpp, Maurice Schweitzer (2019), Beyond ‘Rub Some Dirt on It:’ The Need for an Intervention to Prevent Sports Injuries, Journal of American Medical Association Pediatrics, 173 (3), pp. 215-216.
Hengchen Dai, David Mao, Jason Riis, Kevin Volpp, Michael J. Relish, Victor F. Lawnicki, Katherine L. Milkman (2017), Effectiveness of Medication Adherence Reminders Tied to “Fresh Start” Dates: A Randomized Clinical Trial, Journal of the American Medical Association: Cardiology, 2 (4), pp. 453-455.
Hengchen Dai, David Mao, Kevin Volpp, Heather E. Pearce, Michael J. Relish, Victor F. Lawnicki, Katherine L. Milkman (2017), The effect of interactive reminders on medication adherence: A randomized trial, Preventive Medicine, 103, pp. 98-102. 10.1016/j.ypmed.2017.07.019
Heather Schofield, J. Kopsic, Kevin Volpp, George Loewenstein (2015), Comparing the effectiveness of individualistic, altruistic, and competitive incentives in motivating completion of mental exercises, Journal of Health Economics, 44, pp. 286-299.
Abstract: This study examines the impact of individually oriented, purely altruistic, and a hybrid of competitive and cooperative monetary reward incentives on older adults’ completion of cognitive exercises and cognitive function. We find that all three incentive structures approximately double the number of exercises completed during the six-week active experimental period relative to a no incentive control condition. However, the altruistic and cooperative/competitive incentives led to different patterns of participation, with significantly higher inter-partner correlations in utilization of the software, as well as greater persistence once incentives were removed. Provision of all incentives significantly improved performance on the incentivized exercises. However, results of an independent cognitive testing battery suggest no generalizable gains in cognitive function resulted from the training.
G Loewenstein, J Price, Kevin Volpp (2015), Habit Formation in Children: Evidence from Incentives for Healthy Eating Journal of Health Economics, J Health Econ , 45, pp. 47-54.
Ezekiel J. Emanuel, P. Ubel, Judd B. Kessler, G. Meyer, R. Muller, Amol Navathe, P. Patel, R. Pearl, MB Rosenthal, L. Sacks, AP Sen, P. Sherman, Kevin Volpp (2015), Using Behavioral Economics to Design Physician Incentives that Deliver High Value Care, Annals of Internal Medicine, 24, pp. 1-7.
Kevin Volpp (2015), ACA-mandated elimination of cost sharing for preventive screening has had limited early impact, Journal of Manged Care, 21 (7), pp. 511-517.
Scott Halpern, Benjamin French, Dylan Small, Kathryn Saulsgiver, Michael Harhay, Janet Audrain-McGovern, George Loewenstein, Troyen Brennan, David A. Asch, Kevin Volpp (2015), Randomized Trial of Four Financial-Incentive Programs for Smoking Cessation, New England Journal of Medicine, 372, pp. 2108-2117.
Benjamin French, Dylan Small, Julie Novak, Kathryn Saulsgiver, Michael Harhay, David A. Asch, Kevin Volpp, Scott Halpern (2015), Preference-Adaptive Randomization in Comparative Effectiveness Studies, Trials, 16 (99), pp. 1-9.
Teaching
Past Courses
HCIN602 - BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS
Behavioral economics is a relatively new field at the intersection of economics and psychology. This course offers an introduction to behavioral economics and its applications to health and health care. In it, we will examine the key conceptual underpinnings of the field. We will discuss in detail the structure of the choice environment and the ways that people are influenced by how choices are structured. We will consider the design of incentives and various approaches used to "supercharge" incentive programs using behavioral economics principles. We will consider the use of social incentives and social comparisons as a way of achieving better physician performance. We will conclude with a description of how behavioral economics is used in public policy, as well as the interesting question of when a "nudge" becomes a shove.
HCIN605 - APPLYING BEHAVIORAL ECON
Analyze a case, define a behavioral economics intervention, sketch a behavioral roadmap, and write a proposal for the intervention.
HCIN608 - VALUE & BENEFIT DESIGN
This is a pairing of two 3-week course topics. In "Driving Value in the System," you will engage in understanding the current goals of improving value--defined by quality over costs--in the health care system and drivers of improved value. After hearing from experts in the field about their experiences, you will be able to understand the different payor drivers to increase value, measure quality and cost, deliver an elevator speech for resources, and select tools to implement a value-improvement project. In "Health Insurance and Benefit Design," you will discuss some of the main challenges facing health insurers, efforts to reduce growth in entitlement spending, and research that muses on the effectiveness of different strategies to modify behavior through the use of incentives embedded within health insurance design.
HCMG899 - INDEPENDENT STUDY
Arranged with members of the Faculty of the Health Care Systems Department. For further information contact the Department office, Room 204, Colonial Penn Center, 3641 Locust Walk, 898-6861.
HPR 951 - HPR THESIS I
Each student completes a mentored research project that includes a thesis proposal and a thesis committee and results in a publishable scholarly product. Prerequisite: Course only open to Masters of Science in Health Policy Research students.
HPR 952 - HPR THESIS II
Each student completes a mentored research project that includes a thesis proposal and a thesis committee and results in a publishable scholarly product. Prerequisite: Course only open to Masters of Science in Health Policy Research students.
Awards and Honors
| 2014-2016 | World Economic Forum – chosen to serve on Global Advisory Council on Behavior | ||
| 2014 | Luigi Mastroiaonni Clinical Innovations Award (with David Asch for Way to Health software platform), Penn Medicine | ||
| 2015 | Matilda White Riley Award For Contributions to Social and Behavioral Science, 20th anniversary of the Office of Social and Behavioral Sciences Research, NIH | ||
| 2015 | Association for Clinical and Translational Science (ACTS) Distinguished Investigator Award for Translation from Clinical Use into Public Benefit and Policy. “Award for Career Achievement and Contribution to Clinical and Translational Science” | ||
| 2016 | Article-of-the-Year Award, “Effect of Financial Incentives on Physicians, Patients, or Both on Lipid Levels”, Academy Heath Annual Meeting, Boston, MA | ||
| 2017 | 50@50 notable People, Papers, and Events from the UPENN Leonard Davis Institute’s First Half-Century Award for 2009 New England Journal of Medicine article and 2010 British Medical Journal Group Award for Translating Research into Practice | ||
| 2018 | John McGovern, M.D. Award for ‘exemplary service to academic medicine’ from Association of Academic Health Centers | ||
| 2019 | John Eisenberg National Award for Career Achievement in Research, Society of General Internal Medicine | ||
| 2019 | ACP Behavioral Medicine Award, American College of Physicians | ||
| 2019 | Michael O’Donnell Article-of-the-Year, American J of Hlth Promotion (for John L, Troxel AB, Yancy W et al. The Effect of Cost Sharing on an Employee Weight Loss Program: A Randomized Trial. Am J Hlth Promotion 2018;32(1): 170-176). Role: Senior author |
- Elected to Association of American Physicians (AAP), 2012
- Elected to Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences (IOM), 2012
- Philadelphia Business Journal Innovation Award, 2012
- British Medical Journal Group Awards for “Translating Research into Practice” for work on Financial Incentives and Smoking Cessation implemented by General Electric nationally for 152,000 employees January, 2010
- Society of General Internal Medicine Outstanding Research Paper of the Year for Volpp KG, Troxel AB, Pauly MV, et al. New England Journal of Medicine; 2009; 360:699-709, 2010
- Time Magazine Most Significant Advances in Health 2009 A-Z. Work descibed under “I” for “Incentives”, 2009
- Elected to American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI), 2008
- Best Paper Award – AcademyHealth Annual R esearch Meeting (with A Rosen, P Romano, P Rosenbaum, J Silber) – “Impact of ACGME Duty Hours on Mortality Among Patients in VA Hospitals” – one of three highest rated abstracts our of about 1700 submitted., 2007
- Alice S. Hersh New Investigator Award, AcademyHealth, for “exceptional promise for future contributions to health services research”, 2007
- Society of General Internal Medicine Outstanding Junior Investigator Award, 2006
- John Thompson Award from Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA) for outstanding accomplishments in health services research as a junior investigator, 2006
- Presidential Award for Early Career Scientistis and Engineers (PECASE) – recognized at White House by President Bush with highest honor given by US government for early career scientists, 2005
- Association for Clinical and Translational Science (ACTS) Distinguished Investigator Award for Translation from Clinical Use into Public Benefit and Policy. “Award for Career Achievement and Contribution to Clinical and Translational Science”, 1970
- Matilda White Riley Award For Contributions to Social and Behavioral Science, 20th anniversary of the Office of Social and Behavioral Sciences Research, NIH, 1970
- Article-of-the-Year Award, “Effect of Financial Incentives on Physicians, Patients, or Both on Lipid Levels”, Academy Heath Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, 1970
- World Economic Forum – chosen to serve on Global Advisory Council on Behavior, 1970
In the News
Knowledge @ Wharton
- When — and How — Should the U.S. Economy Reopen?, Knowledge @ Wharton - 05/12/2020
- How Firms Can Convince Employees to Quit Smoking, Knowledge @ Wharton - 08/28/2018
- How Behavioral Economics Could Solve America’s Health Care Woes, Knowledge @ Wharton - 05/12/2017
- How to Convince Workers to Quit Smoking – by Making a Bet, Knowledge @ Wharton - 05/22/2015
- Why Some Innovation Tournaments Succeed and Others Fail, Knowledge @ Wharton - 02/20/2014
- Using ‘The Hunger Games’ to Encourage Healthier Choices, Knowledge @ Wharton - 11/19/2013
- Dieting in the Digital Age, Knowledge @ Wharton - 10/04/2013
Activity
Latest Research
In the News
When — and How — Should the U.S. Economy Reopen?Measures to protect the population while easing the county’s economic burden could include everything from electronic surveillance to radically altered work environments. Wharton experts weigh the options.
Knowledge @ Wharton - 2020/05/12