Contextual Targeting in mHealth Apps: Harnessing Weather Information and Message Framing to Increase Physical Activity

Nakyung Kyung (), Jason Chan (), Sanghee Lim () and Byungtae Lee ()
Additional contact information
Nakyung Kyung: School of Computing, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117417
Jason Chan: Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455
Sanghee Lim: Enolink, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142
Byungtae Lee: College of Business, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Seoul 02455, Korea

Information Systems Research, 2024, vol. 35, issue 3, 1034-1051

Abstract: This paper addresses how real-time weather information acquired through mobile technology can be leveraged to enhance the efficacy of mobile interventions for spurring users’ healthier behaviors. Through a field experiment that each participant experience different weather conditions in two different treatment periods under the gain or loss interventions, we found that the effects of gain or loss interventions across sunny and cloudy weather are not uniformly distributed. Loss intervention induces higher levels of fulfillment of exercise goals than gain intervention in sunny weather, whereas gain interventions are more effective than loss interventions in cloudy weather. We also provided empirical evidence to uncover the underlying mechanisms and rules out alternative explanations. The follow-up experiment reveals that weather-based intervention can be used repeatedly over time without losing its effectiveness. Moreover, our result suggests that the observed effect is more evident for people with a lower exercise level and living in areas of lower income. Our study provides theoretical guidance and practical implications for academics, healthcare businesses, and policymakers on the strategy of using weather-based messaging for enhancing physical activity levels.

Keywords: mobile health; hypercontextual targeting; weather; framing; mood as a resource; physical activity; randomized field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/isre.2020.0119 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:orisre:v:35:y:2024:i:3:p:1034-1051

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Information Systems Research from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().