(P118) Prosocial Interventions to Improve Health Outcomes: A Global Mixed Methods Synthesis and Systematic Review of Trials

Tuesday, July 25, 2023

16:00 – 18:00 CST

Primary Presenter(s)

Gifty Marley, MMed, PhD (she/her/hers)

Post-doctoral Fellow
University of North Carlolina at Chapel Hill - Project China, Guangdong, China (People's Republic)

Co-Author(s)

MB

Maggie Byrne

Graduate Research Assistant
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Rochester, New York, United States

Co-author(s)

Rayner Kay Jin Tan, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow
University of North Carolina Project-China, United States
JT

Joseph D. Tucker

Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA; Clinical Research Department, Faculty of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK, United States
RR

Rohit Ramaswamy

Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, United States
DW

Dan Wu, PhD

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, United States
TH

Takhona Hlatshwako

University of Oxford, United States
JB

Jennifer Bissram

UNC Chapel Hill, United States
SN

Sophie Nachman

UNC Chapel Hill, United States
WT

Weiming Tang

Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA, United States

Background: Prosocial interventions encourage voluntary actions that benefit others to achieve positive medical and/or public health outcomes. Although a number of prosocial interventions exist, understanding of their effectiveness is limited.. This review aims to determine the effectiveness of prosocial interventions on health or medical outcomes in clinical trials.

Methods: Informed by theCochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions, we conducted a literature review searching five databases through October 29, 2021. . Trials reporting on public health or medical outcomes, written in English, published in a peer-reviewed journal, and involving a comparison group and a prosocial intervention group were considered for eligibility. Data extraction and synthesis consisted of three parts: a transformation of quantitative and mixed methods results to qualitative narratives, a data-based convergent synthesis, and a meta-aggregation interpretation. The Cochrane Collaboration’s tool was used to assess the risk of bias in randomized controlled trials, while the ROBINS-I tool was used to determine the risk of bias in non-randomized studies. We used the GRADE approach to assess the certainty of summary findings. The review was registered in PROSPERO (CRD42021288888).

Results: The initial search yielded 4,177 citations. We identified 370 eligible full-text studies and ultimately included 24 studies. The majority (n=?) of studies indicated that prosocial interventions generated positive health outcomes for givers and recipients. The prosocial interventions included acts and expressions of kindness towards others, pay-it-forward of STI tests, and monetary benefits to others. An individual who received a free service through Pay-it-Forward was then encouraged to donate in order to help other people. Pay-it-forward increased test uptake and vaccines for vulnerable groups.

Conclusions: Prosocial interventions can improve public health or medical outcomes. Further implementation research is needed to scale up and understand the mechanisms of prosocial interventions.