a. The intervention that the article focused on was increasing how much people walk through a 12-week program. It has been proven countless times that exercise is beneficial in many ways, but we are exercising less and less. This lack of physical activity is now estimated to be the 4th risk factor of mortality on a global scale. Researchers in the Population Health Research Institute at St. George’s University of London realized that most studies that were conducted in the past only presented short term outcomes of increased physical activity; so in this study, they decided to study the results of the intervention up to 4 years after.
b. Two trials were created for the research; one was called PACE-UP, which was made for adults aged 45 to 75 and the other was called PACE-Lift made for adults aged 60 to 75 years. The participants that were recruited from 10 primary care practices in London.
The PACE-UP trial had three different groups. The first was the control group who received usual care with no intervention. The second received the intervention program material and instructions in the mail, and the third received the same materials and instructions during the first visit to their three nurse physical activity consultations. The PACE-Lift group had two groups, the control and the intervention group that received assistance from nurses.
Intervention groups from the two trials were given a pedometer and was asked to increase their step count in increments over the 12 weeks. Data was recorded at 3 months, 12 months, and then at 3 years for PACE-UP and 4 years for PACE-Lift but in the end combined all the groups due to their similarity. The intervention groups maintained an increase of 30 minutes in their weekly moderate to high intensity activity after the 4 years.
The data they collected showed that both fatal (which yielded a Hazard Ratio (HR) of 0.24, which means that there are less risk of developing a disease or condition if one takes this action) and non-fatal cardiovascular diseases (HR = 0.34) were lower in the intervention group. The risk of fractures were also lower in the intervention group, yielding an HR of 0.56.
c. I think the data presented sounds promising, especially with the many other studies that prove the benefits of exercising. However, I feel I need more information and data to determine if the intervention is effective for everyone. We aren’t told the number/percentage of the participants who were able to maintain the increase in physical activity for 4 years. I am sure there were people who decided to quit. If 70% of the people quit (I know it is unrealistic, but just as an example), the intervention is not effective for the majority even if it produces great results for the 30%. That isn’t a very effective intervention method for the general population. Furthermore, I would like to know what the program was and the difference between conventional walking programs.
d. Based on the Diffusion of Innovations theory, I think this method has the potential to catch on. Some people are Innovators, so they would jump on this new program. If they like it or think it is effective/innovative, the word would spread to the Early Adopters. After the adopters like them, both the Early and Late majority would catch up to testing out the program for themselves. The Laggards will be hard to convince, but reliable statistics of the effectiveness, as well as social pressure, could make them try the program out for themselves.
Reference:
Harris, T. (2019, June 25). Walking intervention tied to long-term health benefits. Retrieved June 25, 2019, from https://www.healio.com/internal-medicine/nutrition-and-fitness/news/online/{b960fe50-f9cc-4944-b47c-93601bc3c9c7}/walking-intervention-tied-to-long-term-health-benefits
This seems like a great strategy to stop the epidemic of sitting. Maybe if they made it into more of a game where people could compete with each other they would be less likely to quit.