Effectiveness and cost of two stair-climbing interventions-less is more.

PURPOSE

The current study compared two interventions for promotion of stair climbing in the workplace, an information-based intervention at a health information day and an environmental intervention (point-of-choice prompts), for their effectiveness in changing stair climbing and cost per employee.

DESIGN

Interrupted time-series design.

SETTING

Four buildings on a university campus.

SUBJECTS

Employees at a university in the United Kingdom.

INTERVENTIONS

Two stair-climbing interventions were compared: (1) a stand providing information on stair climbing at a health information day and (2) point-of-choice prompts (posters).

MEASURES

Observers recorded employees' gender and method of ascent (n = 4279). The cost of the two interventions was calculated.

ANALYSIS

Logistic regression.

RESULTS

There was no significant difference between baseline (47.9% stair climbing) and the Workplace Wellbeing Day (48.8% stair climbing), whereas the prompts increased stair climbing (52.6% stair climbing). The health information day and point-of-choice prompts cost $773.96 and $31.38, respectively.

CONCLUSION

The stand at the health information day was more expensive than the point-of-choice prompts and was inferior in promoting stair climbing. It is likely that the stand was unable to encourage stair climbing because only 3.2% of targeted employees visited the stand. In contrast, the point-of-choice prompts were potentially visible to all employees using the buildings and hence better for disseminating the stair climbing message to the target audience.