User Financial Incentives (UFIs) have emerged as a powerful tool
for health promotion. Strong evidence suggests that large enough
incentives paid to individuals conditional on behaviour they can
control encourages more of the desired behaviour. However, such
interventions can have unintended consequences for non-targeted
behaviours. Implementation difficulties that result in individuals not
understanding the nature of the incentive, unintended opportunities
to “game” the system and inefficient roll-outs, can dampen results.
Moreover, the legitimacy of paternalistic interventions by health
planners requires careful consideration if we accept that the families
involved will almost certainly be better judges of their own best
interests than outsiders