Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Comment
  • Published:

How kindness can be contagious in healthcare

Nature Medicine volume 27, pages 1142–1144 (2021)Cite this article

Subjects

Pay-it-forward programs, whereby someone receives a gift or free service and then gives a gift to another person in return, have expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic and provide an opportunity for healthcare providers to reduce costs, increase uptake of interventions such as testing and vaccines, and promote sustainability.

Access through your institution
Buy or subscribe

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Access through your institution

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Overview of the pay-it-forward approach.
Fig. 2: COVID-19 messages focused on contagious kindness identified through a crowdsourcing open call of the World Health Organization and United Nations.

References

  1. Solnit, R. A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disasters (Viking, 2009).

  2. Oxford University Press. Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford University Press, 2000).

  3. van Ryneveld, M., Whyle, E. & Brady, L. Int. J. Health Policy Manag. https://doi.org/10.34172/ijhpm.2020.167 (2020).

  4. United Nations. https://www.talenthouse.com/i/united-nations-global-call-out-to-creatives-help-stop-the-spread-of-covid-19 (2021).

  5. Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. https://www.lstmed.ac.uk/news-events/news/lstm-launches-bump-it-forward-campaign (2021).

  6. Yang, F. et al. Lancet Infect. Dis. 20, 976–982 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Hui, B. P. H., Ng, J. C. K., Berzaghi, E., Cunningham-Amos, L. A. & Kogan, A. Psychol. Bull. 146, 1084–1116 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Curry, O. S. et al. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 76, 320–329 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Beheshti, N. Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/nazbeheshti/2019/11/11/upstream-reciprocity-how-gratitude-can-improve-your-organizations-teamwork-and-culture/?sh=52e4ec1ad5ca (2019).

  10. Fowler, J. H. & Christakis, N. A. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 107, 5334–5338 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Franklin, B. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (MacMillan, 1917).

  12. Hoffman, P. The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The story of Paul Erdos and the Search for Mathematical Truth (Hyperion, New York, 1998).

  13. McBride, A. B., Campbell, J. & Deming, K. J. Prof. Nurs. 35, 156–161 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Tucker, J. D., Day, S., Tang, W. & Bayus, B. PeerJ 6, e6762 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. The World Health Organization, The Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases, Social Entrepreneurship to Spur Health & the Social Innovation in Health Initiative. https://www.who.int/tdr/publications/year/2018/crowdsourcing-practical-guide/en/ (2018).

  16. Li, K. T. et al. Sex. Transm. Dis. 47, 395–401 (2020).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Wu, D., Yang, F., Tang, W., Zhang, T. & Tucker, J.D. https://panopto-web.med.unc.edu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=83f559a6-8027-4078-a219-ac770129bd37 (30 November 2020).

  18. Hoffman, I. gofundme https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-fund-the-covid19-effort-in-malawi?utm_campaign=p_cp_url&utm_medium=os&utm_source=customer (accessed 28 May 2021).

  19. City of London. Crowdfunder https://payitforward.london.gov.uk/about-us (2021).

  20. Lee, C., Burgess, G., Kuhn, I., Cowan, A. & Lafortune, L. Public Health 180, 117–128 (2020).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Yan, L. Beijing Review https://www.bjreview.com/China/202101/t20210104_800231674.html (2021).

Download references

Acknowledgements

Supported by the US National Institutes of Health (NIAID K24AI143471 and R01AI158826), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges, the UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases, the Charles Koch Foundation (Center for the Science of Moral Understanding) and the Guangdong Provincial Dermatology Hospital. The funding sources had no part in the study design, collection, analysis, or interpretation of the data, writing of the report, and decision to submit the paper for publication.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Weiming Tang & Joseph D. Tucker

  2. University of North Carolina Project-China, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China

    Weiming Tang, Fan Yang & Joseph D. Tucker

  3. SESH Global, Guangzhou, China

    Weiming Tang, Dan Wu, Fan Yang & Joseph D. Tucker

  4. Dermatology Hospital of Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China

    Dan Wu & Cheng Wang

  5. Institute of Population Research, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Fan Yang

  6. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Beijing, China

    Wenfeng Gong

  7. Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Kurt Gray

  8. Clinical Research Department, Faculty of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK

    Joseph D. Tucker

Authors
  1. Weiming Tang
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Dan Wu
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Fan Yang
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Cheng Wang
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Wenfeng Gong
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Kurt Gray
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Joseph D. Tucker
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

J.D.T. wrote the first draft of this manuscript and developed the initial idea; and all authors contributed to the manuscript, helped with writing, and approved of the final manuscript for submission.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Joseph D. Tucker.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Tang, W., Wu, D., Yang, F. et al. How kindness can be contagious in healthcare. Nat Med 27, 1142–1144 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-021-01401-x

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-021-01401-x

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing