IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nathum/v9y2025i6d10.1038_s41562-025-02165-x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Nationwide demonstration of improved COVID-19 vaccination uptake through behavioural reminders

Author

Listed:
  • Hannah Behrendt

    (The Behavioural Insights Team)

  • Giulia Tagliaferri

    (The Behavioural Insights Team)

  • Lev Tankelevitch

    (The Behavioural Insights Team)

  • Yihan Xu

    (The Behavioural Insights Team)

  • Hugo Harper

    (The Behavioural Insights Team)

  • Natalie Gold

    (London School of Economics and Political Science
    Verian)

  • Dale Weston

    (UK Health Security Agency)

  • Rachel Rosen

    (NHS England)

  • Robert Scott

    (NHS England)

Abstract

Here we report the results of two nationwide randomized controlled trials. By refining behavioural-science-informed text messages notifying patients of their vaccine eligibility, we observed improvements in vaccination rates. The randomized controlled trials involved adults aged 40–44 years (n = 1,825,937) and 24–29 years (n = 2,174,064) in England. Messages emphasizing ‘Top of queue’ status led to small, but policy-relevant, increases in vaccination rates in both the 40–44 age group (odds ratio 1.02, 95% confidence interval 1.01–1.03) and the 24–29 age group (odds ratio 1.02, 95% confidence interval 1.01–1.04). Consequently, the ‘Top of queue’ message was nationally rolled out to other age groups. These findings demonstrate the potential of ‘queue’ framing in relevant contexts and the value of rigorous testing of public health messaging.

Suggested Citation

  • Hannah Behrendt & Giulia Tagliaferri & Lev Tankelevitch & Yihan Xu & Hugo Harper & Natalie Gold & Dale Weston & Rachel Rosen & Robert Scott, 2025. "Nationwide demonstration of improved COVID-19 vaccination uptake through behavioural reminders," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 9(6), pages 1237-1245, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nathum:v:9:y:2025:i:6:d:10.1038_s41562-025-02165-x
    DOI: 10.1038/s41562-025-02165-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02165-x
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41562-025-02165-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nathum:v:9:y:2025:i:6:d:10.1038_s41562-025-02165-x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.