Behavioral Economics is a relatively new field that studies consumer decision making relative to incentives. What has become clear in the past 30 years is that many of us, when incentives of some kind are introduced, tend to make irrational decisions.

For example, why don’t we take our chronic medications as prescribed? In many cases, it’s because we don’t experience an immediate benefit for doing so. Our brains are hard-wired to reward us with dopamine (a powerful chemical the brain releases as a reward for performing behaviors that, in the distant past, were central to our survival). To our brain, adherence to chronic medications is not one of those vital behaviors.

HealthHonors links rewards to the act of daily, weekly or monthly compliance, re-establishing the medicinal cause and effect relationship.