The University of Essex along with YuLife, the tech-driven financial services and employee wellbeing company, today announced they are collaborating on a research project to provide scientific-based evidence on how YuLife’s gamified app incentivises behaviour change while improving individual health and wellbeing outcomes. The goal is to provide the insurance industry with a validated model for more accurately assessing an organisation’s risk.
The two-year project, funded by the UK government’s innovation agency, Innovate UK, will be the first knowledge transfer partnership to be signed by the University’s newly established Institute of Public Health and Wellbeing.
YuLife is fundamentally changing the value derived from insurance and employee benefits by evolving traditional group insurance into true preventative healthcare that people love and use every day. Within the YuLife app, members can convert currency earned with walks, workouts, cycling, and meditation into tree planting, ocean cleaning, groceries and vouchers from popular brands such as Nike, Amazon and Tesco.
Consistent app engagement that drives long-term behaviour change can decrease underlying health risk. Working together with scientists from the University of Essex will help further explore any direct link between using the app and health impact.
Researchers will use quantitative methods, including artificial intelligence, and longitudinal analyses to determine the:
● Causal relationship between YuLife app engagement and improvements in health, such as reduced cardiovascular risk, increased physical activity, and mental wellbeing.
● Impact of advanced game mechanics incorporating principles from behavioural psychology.
The project is also aimed at helping YuLife better understand the risk mitigation achieved by its app and the economic impact on a business and the health of its workforce, as well as the impact a healthy workforce has on business performance indicators including productivity, retention, and absenteeism.
“It is exciting for YuLife to be a part of a scientific study where, for the first time in the insurance industry, academic researchers in public health will validate how gamification impacts health and wellbeing for the better,” said Sammy Rubin, CEO and Founder, YuLife. “Since founding YuLife, our core mission has been to breathe life back into life insurance by incentivising healthy behaviours to de-risk individuals. We look forward to seeing the evidence emerge from this partnership that will highlight a link between the app’s high engagement and positive lifestyle outcomes.”
“This is a very exciting opportunity for our team to show how the expertise within our Institute and wider Essex community, can make a real difference to people’s lives as well as help a growing business achieve its strategic aims” said Professor Mariachiara Di Cesare, Director of the Institute of Public Health and Wellbeing.
Professor Robert Stawski, Deputy Director of the Institute added, “This partnership could bring the insurance business to another level through understanding and promoting the daily health and wellbeing of the population.”
Professors Di Cesare and Stawski will be joined on the team by Dr Honor Bixby, who has experience of planning, delivering and evaluating participatory population health studies, and Dr Tasos Papastylianou, a former medical doctor in the NHS with expertise in artificial intelligence and data science who will collaborate directly with YuLife’s Lead Scientist and Researcher, Dr John Ronayne, in delivery of the project.
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