Faculty of Health Sciences, School of Kinesiology, Arts & Humanities Building, Western University, Room 3R12B, London, Ontario, N6A 5B9, Canada.
Carrot Insights Inc., Toronto, ON, Canada.
Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2020 Feb 25;17(1):24. doi: 10.1186/s12966-020-00926-7.
Top tier commercial physical activity apps rarely undergo peer-reviewed evaluation. Even fewer are assessed beyond six months, the theoretical threshold for behaviour maintenance. The purpose of this study was to examine whether a multi-component commercial app rewarding users with digital incentives for walking was associated with an increase in physical activity over one year.
This 12-month quasi-experimental study was conducted in two Canadian provinces (n = 39,113 participants). Following a two-week baseline period, participants earned digital incentives ($0.04 CAD/day) every day they reached a personalized daily step goal. Mixed-effects models estimated changes in weekly mean daily step count between the baseline period and the last two recorded weeks. Models were fit for several engagement groups and separately by baseline physical activity status within engagement groups.
Nearly half of participants (43%) were categorized as physically inactive at baseline (fewer than 5000 daily steps), and 60% engaged with the app for at least six months ['Regular' (24-51 weeks of step data) or 'Committed' sub-groups (52 weeks)]. Weekly mean daily step count increased for physically inactive users regardless of engagement status (P < .0001). The increase was largest for 'Regular' and 'Committed' participants-1215 and 1821 steps/day, respectively. For physically active participants, step count increases were only observed in the 'Committed' sub-group (P < .0001). Effect sizes were modest-to-medium depending on the sub-group analyzed.
A commercial app providing small but immediate digital incentives for individualized goals was associated with an increased weekly mean daily step count on a population-scale over one year. This effect was more evident for physically inactive and more engaged participants.
顶级商业体育活动应用程序很少经过同行评审评估。在理论上维持行为的六个月期限之后，对它们进行评估的就更少了。本研究的目的是检验一个多组件的商业应用程序，该程序通过为达到个人每日目标的用户提供数字奖励来激励他们多走路，是否能在一年时间内增加身体活动量。
这是一项为期 12 个月的准实验研究，在加拿大的两个省份进行（n=39113 名参与者）。在两周的基线期之后，参与者每天达到个性化的每日步数目标，就可以获得数字奖励（每天 0.04 加元）。混合效应模型估计了基线期和最后两周记录期之间每周平均每日步数的变化。这些模型适用于几个参与组，并且根据参与组内的基线身体活动状态分别进行了拟合。
近一半的参与者（43%）在基线时被归类为身体不活跃（每天少于 5000 步），60%的参与者至少有六个月的时间使用该应用程序[“Regular”（24-51 周的步骤数据）或“Committed”子组（52 周）]。无论参与状态如何，身体不活跃的用户每周平均每日步数都有所增加（P<0.0001）。“Regular”和“Committed”参与者的增加幅度最大，分别为 1215 和 1821 步/天。对于身体活跃的参与者，只有在“Committed”子组中才观察到步数的增加（P<0.0001）。根据分析的子组，效果大小为中等至中等偏上。
一个提供个性化目标的小但即时数字奖励的商业应用程序，在一年的时间里，与人群平均每周平均每日步数的增加有关。对于身体不活跃和更活跃的参与者，这种效果更为明显。
