1. Effectiveness of e-mail support to increase physical activity
within the workplace
Jillian Woolmer, Coordinator Curtin Healthy Lifestyle Program
Kay Sauer, Director, Academic Programs, School of Public Health
Peter Howat, Assoc Professor, Centre for Health Promotion Research
Curtin University of Technology

2. Introduction
Staff Health Promotion at Curtin University began in the late 1980’s - based on Ottawa Charter
Promotion and support of healthy behaviours
-physical activity, healthy eating, stress management & smoke free workplace
Healthy lifestyle policy - provides staff paid time off work to participate in healthy activities
Supportive environment - smoking, alcohol & nutrition related policies
Physical inactivity has been acknowledged as one of the most important risk factors for many health conditions and is the focus of this study

3. Aim Increase staff physical activity (PA) levels
Obtain base line data re staff PA levels
Develop PA strategies for time poor staff
Need to be flexible
Suitable for older staff members (over 35)
Appeal to both male and female staff

4. Method
Brief intervention to assess effectiveness of a walking based intervention to motivate Curtin university staff to be more active
Thirty staff (22 females 8 males) volunteered for the 14 day trial

5. Single blinded trial, randomly allocated to 2 groups
Control group - given pedometers - record normal daily steps
Intervention group - given pedometers - record normal daily steps + prompted via motivation on days 4, 8 and 12 to increase their daily step count

6. Participants completed a questionnaire that provided data on levels of baseline physical activity.
Participants wore pedometers
(Omron HJ-002) as an objective measure of walking activity and completed daily diary sheets.
A post-test questionnaire was completed by participants at the end of the study.
Steps/day were analysed using SPSS

7. Results
Week 1 University staff steps/day across both groups (7,605 mean steps/day), were significantly lower than that of the general population in Western Australia (9,695 mean steps/day)1 p=.002
Week 2 University staff steps/day across both groups (8,493 mean steps/day), were also significantly lower than steps/day of the general population in Western Australia (9,695 mean steps/day)1 p=.017
1. McCormack G, Milligan R, Giles-Corti B, Clarkson J. Physical activity levels of Western Australian adults 2002: Results from the adult physical activity survey and pedometer study. Perth, Western Australian: Western Australian Government; 2003.

8. Sedentary staff
Participants were academic or general staff members – basically sedentary workers
Mean age was 44 ±10
Fifty percent of the participants (volunteers) were either overweight or obese
The majority of participants (90%) reported being physically inactive at work
This is of concern as sedentary staff are at higher risk of mortality and morbidity from chronic diseases

9. Results -
Baseline – groups not significantly different over first 3 days 7,195 Control 7,252 (p=0.93)
group increased their mean steps significantly from 7,578 Week 1 to 9,128 (p=0.043) in Week 2
Control group was not significantly different with 7,616 in Week 1 and 7,858 (p=0.62) in Week 2

10. Results Week 1 and Week 2 comparing email groups14
N =
receive motivation
yes no
20000
10000
week 1 average steps
week 2 average steps
mean
weekly
steps

11. Results
Week 2 group significantly increased average daily walking by 1,549 steps compared to Week 1 (p=0.043) or approximately 15 ½ minutes per day.
No significant change in activity levels in control group with an increased daily walking by 241 steps (p=0.62) or approximately 2 ½ minutes per day.

12. Results
group more active during the weekdays than the control group
group activity seemed to spike the day they were sent motivation
Control group was more active on the weekend

13. Results Day 1-14 3 2 1

14. Discussion
Subjects who indicated they liked outperformed those who did not.
69% liked support, felt that it helped them to keep motivated and feel part of a group.
Those that did not like regular s said they were too busy and received too many s at work already.
Others said they were already motivated and did not need the motivation.

15. Most of the participants (90%) liked wearing the pedometers
Made them more aware of the incidental exercise/activity that they actually did every day.
Most stated it encouraged them to do more walking, however only the group that received regular messages actually increased their walking.

16. Participants claimed they generally enjoyed being part of the project and intended encouraging others to use a pedometer or go walking with them.
Several participants subsequently reported buying pedometers of their own.

17. Conclusion
Regular s appear to be useful in increasing University staff PA. Ongoing encouragement and support may help sedentary employees in similar worksites become more active.
By sustaining and building on the small increases in steps, PA levels could slowly be built up to the desired level of 10,000 steps/day.
Supplementary strategies - support, being part of a team, goal setting or a web based walking program may increase the effectiveness of a pedometer to increase physical activity amongst staff members and should be investigated further.
Recruiting a larger group via random selection and conducting the study over a longer time frame would provide more conclusive evidence.

18. Acknowledgements The authors wish to thank:
The 30 staff that participated in this study
Curtin University for funding the Staff Health Promotion Program
Satvinder Dhaliwal & Richard Woodman from the School of Public Health Curtin University, for assistance with statistical analysis