A BMJ analysis of using financial incentives to achieve healthy behaviour has stirred a debate in the press this week. News agency AFP wrote that, “Health authorities and corporations are increasingly offering money to people who quit smoking, lose weight or take medicine, despite uncertainty that such incentives work beyond a few months”. The Financial Times was equally pessimistic saying that, “the programmes are attacked as “a form of bribery” and “rewarding people for unhealthy behaviour”, while others believe they undermine the doctor patient relationship and remove patients’ autonomy”. However The Independent is more optimistic saying: “Paying people to change their habits works because it offers immediate rewards for behaviour that will only provide a health benefit in years ahead”.

BMJ in the news:

• Cash incentives helping nation’s health – Financial Times, UK
• Bribery – the key to better public health – The Independent, UK
• Rewards for healthier lifestyle stir debate – AFP
• Chinese Bias for Baby Boys Creates a Gap of 32 Million – New York Times, US
• Selective abortion causes 32 mil extra China males – AFP
• Poor more likely to die after heart surgery | Society | The Guardian – Guardian.co.uk
• Poverty link to heart surgery deaths – Nursing in Practice, UK
• Gradual Cutback with Nicotine Replacement Boosts Quit Rates – MedPage Today
• Using Nicotine Replacement Therapy Could Help Some Smokers Quit – Science Daily, USA

BMJ in blogs:

• China’s one-child law leading to huge gender imbalances | BIGON
• BMJ: China’s gender imbalance is wide, and is growing
• Perpetua of Carthage: Is China Aborting Its Baby Girls?
• Sex-Selective Abortions in China Have Produced 32 Million Extra
• I Want to Quit Smoking: Friday, April 03, 2009, New Study
• Using Nicotine Replacement Therapy Could Help Some Smokers Quit
• Effects of nicotine replacement for smoking reduction
• Heart Surgery Survival Gap Between Rich And Poor, Heart
  

Most read:

• Patients and the public deserve big changes in evaluation of drugs
• China’s excess males, sex selective abortion, and one child policy: analysis of data from 2005 national intercensus survey
• Effectiveness and safety of nicotine replacement therapy assisted reduction to stop smoking: systematic review and meta-analysis
• Cauda equina syndrome
• Methodological problems in the use of indirect comparisons for evaluating healthcare interventions: survey of published systematic reviews

Most commented:

• Commentary: Risks of doing as the Romans do
• Cauda equina syndrome
• Tea drinking habits and oesophageal cancer in a high risk area in northern Iran: population based case-control study
• Spontaneous preterm birth and small for gestational age infants in women who stop smoking early in pregnancy: prospective cohort study
• Practising safely in the foundation years

Juliet Walker is the Editorial Intern, BMJ