Discovery paying South Africans to sleep

Discovery has officially launched the Vitality Sleep Score and its new Vitality Sleep Rewards programme, which is the first new core pillar added to the programme in two decades. 

This places Sleep alongside other elements of the Vitality Rewards programme, such as Screening, Physical Activity, and Nutrition. 

The addition is all part of Discovery’s shared-value model, whereby it aims to make South Africans healthier and wealthier through behavioural changes. 

These changes reduce the risk and cost of coverage for Discovery, while improving the health of its clients and giving them rewards for improved behaviour. 

The new Sleep offering is backed by extensive research from Discovery, including an analysis of over 47 million sleep records, to create a clear metric for users. 

This metric quantifies how sleep directly impacts mortality risk and long-term health, with poor sleep being shown to significantly increase the likelihood of developing hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and depression.

Vitality CEO Dinesh Govender previously told Daily Investor that the dataset underpinning the proprietary Vitality Sleep Score rivals that of American tech giants. 

Compared to the 47 million nights of data Discovery uses, Apple’s version is built on only 5 million nights’ worth of data. 

Vitality is also able to combine this dataset with more granular data from Discovery Insure, Health, Life, and its bank to provide enhanced behavioural nudges. 

This effectively enables Vitality to tap into a user’s medical aid claims data, their spending behaviour, historic life insurance claims, and driving behaviour to create a complete risk profile that no other company can. 

Sleep is the latest piece of this puzzle, with Vitality’s research linking it to the health of clients, their estimated lifespan, and driving behaviour.

“This is the first time in almost two decades that we have introduced a new Vitality pillar, and the evidence demanded it,” Govender said. 

The Sleep Score does not merely measure how long an individual sleeps, but tracks aspects that are most strongly linked to long-term health outcomes, such as quality, depth, and regularity. 

“We will look at your age, gender, clinical characteristics, lifestyle, physical activity, and chronic conditions to determine what sleep you as an individual should get,” Govender said. 

“For some individuals, according to our data, REM sleep may be more important than duration, and for others, duration is more important.”

From 7 May, Vitality Sleep Rewards will be fit into the existing Vitality Rewards programme and provide weekly incentives that reward improved sleeping habits. 

Members receive dynamic, personalised weekly sleep goals, viewable on the Discovery app. 

By meeting these goals, whether through improving bedtime regularity or achieving optimal sleep duration, members earn instant rewards, choosing between Discovery Miles or a partner reward each week.

This helps Vitality translate short-term behavioural changes into long-term habits, with immediate gratification attracting the attention of individuals and sustained programmes ensuring positive behaviour is maintained.

While tracking this data is best through wearables, such as Discovery’s ŌURA ring partnership, the company is working on making this accessible through the Vitality Sleep Tracker. 

This will enable members who opt in to be able to use their phone’s motion sensors, alongside a proprietary algorithm, to estimate when they go to sleep and when they wake up. 

Discovery said this will deliver meaningful sleep insights without reliance on a wearable device, ensuring that everyone is able to understand their sleep health.