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Designing cost-effective scalable behavioral interventions
(Universität Vechta, 2025-11-17) Kwasniok, Devin; Mertins, Vanessa Prof.in Dr.in; Eisenkopf, Gerald Prof. Dr.
This dissertation brings together five essays in behavioral and experimental economics. The first three focus on topics in health economics with implications for labor economics, while the final two examine virtual volunteering and its effects on digital participation in later life. Chapter 1 derives the relevance and the connectedness of these topics for social services and the society as a whole.
Chapter 2 is a systematic review and meta-analysis on the effects of monetary incentives and goal-setting in physical activity interventions. Results show that incentives raise attendance and steps, but their effectiveness depends critically on the design of reference groups. When both treatment and reference groups receive structured goals, the performance-enhancing effect of monetary incentives diminishes, underscoring the importance of careful study design.
Chapter 3 reports a field experiment testing the behavioral effects of different goals under constant financial incentives. High-threshold goals resulted in significant and costefficient increases in daily steps, particularly among low performers, whereas open-ended instructions proved more effective for high performers. These findings highlight that aligning goal difficulty with baseline ability is a key condition.
Chapter 4 examines team-based incentives in a field experiment. Assigning participants to two-person teams revealed that team incentives, where either the low performing or top performing team member is payoff relevant, substantially improved performance of low performers. However, capping the incentive at 10,000 steps constrained potential gains for top performers. The results demonstrate both the potential and the limits of peer-based motivational structures in health interventions.
Chapter 5 evaluates two common behavioral interventions to foster volunteer engagement, Gift-Exchange and the Foot-in-the-Door technique. Contrary to expectations, neither strategy outperformed the control group. Responsiveness was concentrated among individuals who rated the project highly, indicating that mission appeal is more decisive than monetary incentives.
Chapter 6 investigates an intergenerational, location-independent mentoring program designed to reduce the second-level digital divide among older adults. The analysis shows that the intervention significantly improved digital competence, reduced technology anxiety, and strengthened self-efficacy. Curricular service-learning modules enhanced competence, whereas voluntary tandems were more effective in reducing anxiety.
Cultural well-being and social work: conceptual understandings and their application to music-based interventions for older people
(Universität Vechta, 2025-04-12) Frampton, Magnus; Hartogh, Theo; Schöndube, Oliver; Turunen, Hanna
The term ‘cultural well-being’ seems to be gaining in prominence in health and social care discourses. This paper surveys the existing use of the term in the literature base. Four concrete usage clusters are identified, largely distinct from each other. These are outlined, contrasted for commonalities and differences, and traced back to the discourses from which they originated. The applications for social work are discussed and illustrated with the particular cultural example of sound/music for older service users. This paper concludes by noting that social work can utilise the cultural well-being concept to broaden its traditional bio-psycho-social-spiritual perspectives.
Multivariate statistical detection of interactions between the use of ecosystem services and willingness to protect the Kaya Kambe (Kenya) based on survey data
(Universität Vechta, 2025-10-27) Wichmann, Marlon; Schröder, Winfried; Reith, Alexandra; Rieckmann, Marco; Shauri, Halimu Suleiman
Background: Kenyan coastal forests comprise about 145 fragmented islands of different size and protection status. Cultural ecosystem services provided by Kaya forests for the Mijikenda community in Kenya have helped to preserve relevant parts of this tropical landscape, which today, however, are exposed to strong land use pressures due to a growing population living in poverty. With regard to conservation measures for the Kaya, there is an urgent need to analyse the human–environment relationship of the local population. The aim of the study was to identify the factors and their interactions on the willingness of the local population to protect Kaya Kambe, which was defined as a dependent variable in two statistical models. Methods. The data needed were collected in the year 2022 by means of a questionnaire. The two statistical models were carried out using Chi Square Automatic Interaction Detection. In the first model, those descriptive variables were used that were also used in the hypothesis test based on individual contingency tables not presented here. This hypothesis-verifying approach was supplemented by a hypothesis-explorative second model. It also used descriptive variables that were not considered in the hypothesis testing.
Results: The first model confirms the following interacting constraints on willingness to protect: importance of Kaya trees, personal benefit from protecting Kayas, importance of Kaya animals and usefulness of Kayas as a source of minerals. The second model discovers the following additional influences: access to Kaya, independent tree planting in own plot and in Kaya, monthly income, knowledge of national laws governing the use of Kayas, cultural value of Kayas, and Kayas as a source of energy.
Conclusions The following recommendations were derived from the results and their discussion: creation of alternatives for the extraction of construction timber and firewood, participation of the local population in sustainable forest management, creation of alternative sources of income, enabling reforestation on private land and in the Kaya, as well as education and awareness-raising measures.
Mapping of measured concentrations of persistent organic pollutants and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in mosses and correlation of their surface estimations with maps on modelled atmospheric deposition in Central Europe
(Universität Vechta, 2025-10-29) Schröder, Winfried; Nickel, Stefan; Dreyer, Annekatrin
Background: The 2020 moss survey in Germany was designed as a pilot study and aimed to 1. validate the analysis of various organic contaminants developed in the previous moss survey; 2. develop the microplastic analysis methodology; 3. analyse the spatial distribution of persistent organic pollutants as well as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in moss samples collected in Germany in 2020; and 4. compare the spatial deposition patterns with the results of current atmospheric deposition models. This article describes the latter objective
Methods: The collection of mosses at 21 sites within Germany and the chemical analysis of organic pollutants was carried out according to ICP Vegetation (Heavy metals, nitrogen and POPs in European mosses. Monitoring manual survey 2020. Bangor (United Kingdom) and Dubna (Russian Federation), 2020). Geostatistical methods were used to analyse the spatial structure of the discrete measurement data and to produce maps based on this. The mapped concentrations in the mosses were compared with the modelled total annual deposition.
Results: The spatial distribution of the substances often shows a concentration gradient with higher values in densely populated and industrialised areas in western Germany and lower concentrations in eastern areas. A triangle with comparatively higher values in central Germany is recognisable. No correlations were found between the concentration of benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P) in the mosses and the modelled B[a]P deposition. However, the direct comparison at the moss sampling sites shows better agreement between the measured and modelled data in the northwestern half of Germany than in the other regions. Medium correlations were found between the concentrations of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and furans (PCDD/F) in the mosses and the modelled PCDD/F deposition, and strong and very strong correlations were found with the geostatistical surface estimates. The most obvious similarities in the spatial patterns of the measured PCDD/F and modelled data were found in southern Bavaria, in a strip from North Rhine-Westphalia via northern Hesse to Thuringia and in the triangle between Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, northern Brandenburg and eastern Lower Saxony.
Conclusions: The study made it possible to describe the spatial distribution of persistent organic substances and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in Germany and, at least in the case of PCDD/F, produced a good agreement between the modelled deposition and the measured concentrations in mosses. The moss data should be analysed in greater depth and statistically validated.
Medizinischer Kinderschutz zwischen Elternrecht, Selbstbestimmungsrecht und Schutzverantwortung. Teil 2 – praktische Handlungsoptionen
(Universität Vechta, 2024-09-23) Kliemann, Andrea; Winter, Sibylle M.; Fegert, Jörg M.; Berthold, Oliver
Im zweiten Teil des Beitrages werden die rechtlichen Rahmenbedingungen aus dem 1. Teil auf Fallbeispiele angewandt und diskutiert.