Wharton’s Behavior Change for Good Initiative launches a survey for individuals to gauge their own health and wellness.
Credit: Matthew Quitoriano
Penn researchers have launched a study focused on wellness goals in collaboration with the University of Alberta and CNN.
As part of the program, participants responded to daily two-question quizzes about their health habits for a 30-day period. Penn’s research team — including Wharton professors Katy Milkman and Angela Duckworth — coordinated with 2023 Wharton School Ph.D. graduate Katie Mehr, who now teaches at the University of Alberta, to invite individuals to gauge their own knowledge and participate in an advanced behavioral analysis.
The survey is the latest in an ongoing effort by Wharton’s Behavior Change for Good Initiative, which unites experts across disciplines to study and attempt to change human behavior.
“We hope that this program will give them helpful information about lesser-known ways to improve their health,” Milkman — who co-directs BCGF with Duckworth — wrote in a Sept. 25 blog post announcing the survey. “We’ve built what we hope is a fun and engaging way to gain this knowledge in bite-size, daily doses.”
She compared the quizzes, which range from topics like sleep hygiene to nutrition, to daily language tests or other common aspects of people’s daily routines.
“Just as many people sign into Duolingo each day to accelerate their language learning or Headspace to practice mindfulness, they can now come to Health Daily to boost their wellness IQ,” Milkman added.
Designed to help individuals improve and develop healthy habits, the quizzes are available to any United States resident over the age of eighteen with a working phone number.
The program, according to Milkman, took over a year to build and utilizes experts in multiple fields, including nutrition, engineering, sleep wellness, behavioral science, and physical fitness. CNN will also join the initiative as both a promotional and reporting partner.
“One of the people I encountered was a senior editor at CNN’s Science and Wellness desk who was particularly interested in covering behavioral science insights from my research,” Milkman wrote. “We worked together repeatedly on different articles that shared my findings on CNN.”
Undergraduate students were similarly involved in developing, initiating, and testing the project over the one-year process.
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In a Sept. 23 post on Instagram, Duckworth wrote that the program can “teach [participants] how to lead a healthier life” by increasing “wellness IQ.”
The project received support from the Roybal Funding Program as part of Penn’s Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics.
According to CHIBE’s website, the grant focuses on accelerating “the translation of behavioral and social science research into practical interventions that can improve the quality of life for older adults.”
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