Kristin Harkins | University of Pennsylvania Prevention Research Center

Kristin Harkins, Research Coordinator; Cognitive Aging Communication

Kristin Harkins is Research Coordinator on the UPenn PRC Cognitive Aging Communication Project. She is also a Research Coordinator at the Penn Memory Center of the University of Pennsylvania and a student in Master's of Public Health Program at the University of Pennsylvania.

Q & A Spotlight

Kevin Volpp, MD, PhD, PRC Director
What makes The Healthy Weigh Study different?
Several things have been missing from intervention studies in the past. One is that different approaches were not tested head-to-head or in combination which is what we are doing. A fair amount of data shows that incentives are effective for healthy behavior. There’s also a fair amount of data showing that environmental strategies, environmental coaching can be effective for healthy behavior. Our study will test the two compared to each other, looking at effectiveness and cost effectiveness. It will also test the relative effectiveness of combining them and how each component relates to another. Plus, our study a much longer term study vs the typical - and fairly short - three months, four months, six months. This is a 24-month study so we’ll have a much better sense of what employers would see longer term if they did something like what we’re testing.