Obesity, Sedentary Lifestyle
Conditions
Keywords
Sedentary lifestyle, physical exercise, behavioral economics, financial incentives, obesity
Brief summary
Participants will be employees of Genzyme who volunteer to participate in a study on motivating healthy behaviors, involving giving them goals for taking a certain number of steps per day, and increasing that number over time. Participants will wear pedometers and upload their data to a website that allows them to monitor their progress, and have the opportunity to win money based on meeting their step goals. Interested employees will schedule a day and time to complete a health screening at a Health Fair at their place of employment, to ensure that they are healthy enough to participate; at this time participants will also complete the investigators baseline dependent measures, and receive a pedometer. After a one-week baseline period during which they wear the pedometer and the investigators establish their typical number of steps per day, eligible participants will then be assigned to one of four treatments - a no incentive control condition, and three conditions in which they are entered into different kinds of monetary lotteries if they have met their step goals for that day. Participants' initial goal will be based on their steps during the baseline period, and the goal will increase by 250 steps each week, for a total of 12 weeks. After these 3 months, the incentives portion of the experiment ends, but participants continue to wear their pedometers and upload their data for an additional 6 months. At 3 months, 6 months, and then at the study end at 9 months, participants again complete the investigators dependent measures at follow-up Health Fairs at their place of employment.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALFinancial incentives for increasing physical exercise
Throughout the 12-week intervention, participants will receive step goals. The step goals will increase by 250 steps per week, The intervention will last a total of 12 weeks. After each seven-day week, step goals will increase by an additional 250 steps - thus over the 12 weeks, participants will be asked to increase their daily step count by 3,000. Participants will receive financial incentives to attain these step goals; the incentive schemes differ according to intervention arm.
Sponsors
Blue Cross Blue Shield
Genzyme, a Sanofi Company
Partners HealthCare
Harvard University
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
DOUBLE (Caregiver, Outcomes Assessor)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* BMI of 28 or higher * Pass the Par-Q * answer No to all Par-Q questions * at least 18 years of age * has computer at home or work with compatible operating system (i.e. windows 2000, windows xp, windows vista, osX 10.3-10.5), internet access, and usb port
Exclusion criteria
* Anyone who does not meet all of the inclusion criteria
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| Physical activity | 12 weeks |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| Health Stress questionnaire | 3mo, 6mo, 9mo |
| Emotional, Work, and Financial Attitudes questionnaire | 3mo, 6mo, 9mo |
| Weight loss | 3mo, 6mo, 9mo |
| RAND 36-item Health Survey | 3mo, 6mo, 9mo |
| Health behaviors questionnaire | 3mo, 6mo, 9mo |
| Word of mouth | 6mo, 9mo |
| Physical activity | 6mo, 9mo |
| Hemoglobin A1C | 6mo |
Countries
United States
Outcome results
None listed