Carrot Rewards Wellness App Launches COPD Campaign

Canadian wellness app Carrot Rewards has announced a new campaign in collaboration with The Lung Association — Ontario and Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada) to reach chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients and educate users about the disease.

Carrot Rewards is an artificial intelligence-driven wellness app and brand engagement platform that uses a concept called nudge theory to motivate and reward better lifestyle choices on a mass scale. Instead of relying on education, legislation, or enforcement to achieve compliance, nudge theory proposes positive reinforcement and indirect suggestions to influence the behavior and decision-making of groups or individuals.

Through Carrot Rewards, Canadians can earn points for learning about diseases and taking short quizzes, or by meeting exercise goals monitored through activity trackers. Points can be accumulated in popular consumer loyalty programs, including Aeroplan Miles (airline tickets), SCENE points (movies), or Petro-Points (gasoline).

Approximately 500,000 Canadians over age 35 and 11 million Americans have been diagnosed with COPD. The disease is the third-leading cause of death in the U.S. Although COPD is a serious disease, many people don’t know they have it, and assume that many of its symptoms are simply part of aging.

“Our research indicates that more awareness around COPD, including its risk factors and symptoms, is a gap that needs to be filled,” George Habib, president & CEO, The Lung Association — Ontario, said in a press release. “Easy-to-use tools like Carrot Rewards can help patients and their caregivers close that awareness gap and lead to more meaningful conversations with their healthcare providers — and that means better breathing.”

The new campaign will teach COPD patients how to mitigate disease symptoms through lifestyle changes, suggest potential medical alternatives, and provide direction to the best available resources.

“Giving patients a new and innovative tool to learn about COPD and how they can better manage their disease is helping to fill an educational gap in this area,” said Tony D’Urzo, associate director, Health Science Research Component, faculty of medicine, University of Toronto, Canada. “This new partnership with Carrot Rewards will help empower those living with COPD to lead a healthy life and potentially minimize their symptoms, like breathlessness.”

Richard Mole, president and CEO, Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada), said: “This latest collaboration with the Lung Association and Carrot Rewards will not only help educate Canadians with COPD, but will give them a convenient way to manage their condition — right at their fingertips.”