Text message “nudges” that initially increased Covid vaccine uptake were not effective later in pandemic

Last year a paper made headlines with the finding that basic text message reminders can increase uptake of the Covid vaccine. In fact, we covered the research right here at Research Digest. As we wrote at the time, the results showed that simple techniques to “nudge” people into taking the vaccine could have a substantial impact if applied across the population. 

But according to a new study in Nature, these nudges have a pretty limited shelf-life. The team finds that timing really matters: while text message reminders increased uptake immediately after the vaccine became available, later in the pandemic they were no longer effective. Continue reading →