Changing Health and Wealth Behaviors with Analytics

I read an interesting article on the HBR about how the growing importance of analytics in helping people to make more informed choices about health and wealth. The authors state that consumers respond differently to different interventions designed to change their behaviors, and because some consumers have greater problems than others in health and wealth, analytics can be extremely helpful to prioritize efforts and to determine just what works with whom. Whilst I wholeheartedly agree, their point that traditional approaches (e.g. face-to-face support and educational initiatives) won’t work in the future fails to highlight the fact that these interventions are and will remain critical, even though they are costly to scale. Therefore support and interventions for those most in need should always be available. The challenge is to use more advanced approaches that leverage technology and data to ensure people take more control of their health decisions on a day-to-day basis and do not fall into this category.