The challenges and opportunities of ‘nudging’

Consider the following selective evidence of human behaviour in the domain of healthcare. The numeric-cognition feeds typically provided during public vaccin- ation campaigns are less effective than affect-based perception of risk. It is common to avoid seeing doctors and/or doing health checks because of anxiety and fear of receiving bad results. The latter means that a perceived ‘loss today’ in the health status has a stronger impact than a ‘gain tomorrow’, namely preventing or curing a potential disease. Clinicians fail to act on available knowledge and guide- lines despite the intention to do so.