JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Health self-tracking is perceived as evidence-based approach to optimize health and well-being for personal self-improvement by lifestyle changes. At the same time user-generated health-related data can be of particular value for (health care) research. As longitudinal data, they can provide evidence for developing better and new medications, diagnosing rare diseases faster, or treating chronic diseases.

Objective:

The paper strives to expand the body of knowledge on influential motives of a voluntary data donation among German health self-trackers. At the same time, the study adds to the research on the effectiveness of digital nudges among health self-trackers.

Methods:

A digital experiment was implemented in an online questionnaire via graphical manipulation of the tracking app Runtastics’ interface. 5 independent groups were each questioned about the likelihood of donating their tracked data for research. We employed 4 different digital forced-choice nudges generated from literature on motives for self-tracking, for data donation and data sharing. Thus, the 4 test groups each received a quid pro quo, including two different egoistic, one pseudo-prosocial, and one prosocial benefit, while the control group received no benefit for data donation.

Results:

A sample of N=919 was generated with 68% women and 32% men. The 5 test groups are evenly divided by about 20%. A statistical group comparison shows that men are significantly more likely (P=.037) with a small effect size (r=.21) to donate their self-tracked data for research if a prosocial added value is offered (in this case: making a contribution to society) compared to the control group without countervalue. Selfish or pseudo-prosocial countervalues had no significant effect on willingness to donate health data.

Conclusions:

While surveys regularly reveal an 80 to 95% willingness to donate data on average in the population, our results show that only 41% of health self-trackers would donate their self-collected health data to research. While selfish motives do not significantly influence willingness to donate, linking data donation to added societal value could increase the likelihood to donate among male self-trackers significantly by 15.5%. Thus, prosocial motives promote willingness to donate data among health self-trackers and should be emphasized in campaign designs for health data donation. The implementation of forced-choice framing nudged within tracking apps presented in a pop-up window can add to the accessibility of user-generated health-related data for research.