NUDGE AWARDS 2018: ENCOURAGING EXERCISE THROUGH GAMIFICATION
We are delighted to announce the winner of the Nudge for Good category goes to Intelligent Health, for their entry ‘Beat the Street’.
Inactivity is one of the biggest problems in healthcare today with 1 in 4 people in the UK doing less than 30 minutes of physical activity per week. Physical inactivity is connected to many diseases and conditions such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, dementia and depression.
Despite efforts from public bodies, it has proven challenging to get inactive people to change their behaviour and get moving. There are many perceived barriers to activity including money, time, weather, local provisions, as well as concerns about judgement. While most inactive people know the benefits of exercise, becoming active is thought to be linked to a big change and they don’t understand small steps can have a positive impact.
To tackle the crisis of inactivity we need a solution that engages inactive people and at a scale that will make a community-wide impact.
OUR SOLUTION
Beat the Street is a walking and cycling programme that turns whole towns into games. Special sensors called Beat Boxes are placed across an area roughly half a mile apart from each other. These can be tapped with free cards and fobs that are given out through schools or can be collected at community centres.
Each time the Beat Box is tapped it beeps and flashes to create an instant, tangible reward for players. This records their journey and once they tap a second Beat Box they score points, the more Boxes they tap the more points they earn. At the end of the six or seven week game, the schools or teams who have scored the most points are awarded with hundreds of pounds worth of prizes.
Beat the Street uses gamification principles to reach those who are put off by traditional physical activity messaging. Beat Boxes are able to give out bonus points at specific locations so we are able direct people towards places such as parks and green spaces and encourage long-term physical activity behaviour. By competing against other schools and teams players are driven to walk, cycle and explore their area.
The game reaches the whole population with up to 25% of a community participating. This creates a social norm around physical activity with families preferring to be seen to arrive at school on foot rather than by car.
Finally, by running the game for six or seven weeks, players begin to form habits around physical activity which are sustained long after the game has finished.
THE RESULTS
Our Beat the Street programmes have shown consistent sustained changes in physical activity and active travel behaviour.
We ran our Beat the Street programme over several years in East London which enabled us to see the long-term impact of the game. Comparing self-reported registration data to survey data one year later, we found that Beat the Street players who were inactive (0-1 day of physical activity per week) increased their average days of activity from 0.6 days in 2016 to 3.4 days in 2017.
In Wolverhampton, the University of East Anglia conducted independent analysis which showed that six months after participating in Beat the Street, players were walking 60 more minutes compared to before.
Similarly, in Durham the proportion of players meeting the Chief Medical Officer’s physical activity guidelines rose from 34% before Beat the Street to 45% six months later.
Our Beat the Street game in Milton Keynes was delivered with the aim of increasing usage of the town’s Redway walking and cycling system. Self-reported data showed that players reporting using the Redway system every day or on most days rose from 51% before the game to 60% six months later.