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New Technologies and Behavior Change Interventions: What Can They Do for Each Other?

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Air date: Monday, March 24, 2014, 2:00:00 PM
Time displayed is Eastern Time, Washington DC Local
Views: Total views: 657 (245 Live, 412 On-demand)
Category: BSSR - Behavioral and Social Sciences
Runtime: 01:02:58
Description: BSSR Lecture Series

New mHealth technologies are proliferating at an astonishing rate, with many new tools being harnessed for behavior change interventions. Because they are inexpensive, transportable, and have broad (and growing) penetration, mHealth tools (e.g., smartphone apps, text messaging, accelerometers/pedometers) have the potential to overcome access barriers and extend the reach of behavioral interventions to the large population that may benefit. The co-emergence of new mHealth tools and new, efficient methodologies for intervention development creates an opportunity to design behavioral interventions more systematically than the traditional “kitchen sink” approach. The presenter will illustrate via a series of studies of behavioral interventions designed to produce positive diet and activity changes and/or weight loss by fostering self-monitoring, a robust mediator of behavior change. The results highlight the need for a clear theoretical conceptualization of how to align mHealth self-monitoring tools with established effective intervention components, such as social support and financial incentives. Developments in sensor technology will soon afford access to continuous, passively acquired, accurate information about behavioral parameters including dietary intake and physical activity. The field urgently needs a theoretical model to characterize mechanisms whereby self-monitoring performed via these new technological capabilities can be expected to influence behavior. A key question will be whether new automated self-monitoring capabilities support maintenance of healthy lifestyle change by making self-regulation less burdensome, or whether they thwart maintenance by eliminating the need to exercise effortful cognitive processes that are integral to self-regulation.
NLM Title: New technologies and behavior change interventions : what can they do for each other? / Bonnie Spring.
Author: Spring, Bonnie J.
National Institutes of Health (U.S.). Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research,
Publisher:
Abstract: (CIT): BSSR Lecture Series New mHealth technologies are proliferating at an astonishing rate, with many new tools being harnessed for behavior change interventions. Because they are inexpensive, transportable, and have broad (and growing) penetration, mHealth tools (e.g., smartphone apps, text messaging, accelerometers/pedometers) have the potential to overcome access barriers and extend the reach of behavioral interventions to the large population that may benefit. The co-emergence of new mHealth tools and new, efficient methodologies for intervention development creates an opportunity to design behavioral interventions more systematically than the traditional "kitchen sink" approach. The presenter will illustrate via a series of studies of behavioral interventions designed to produce positive diet and activity changes and/or weight loss by fostering self-monitoring, a robust mediator of behavior change. The results highlight the need for a clear theoretical conceptualization of how to align mHealth self-monitoring tools with established effective intervention components, such as social support and financial incentives. Developments in sensor technology will soon afford access to continuous, passively acquired, accurate information about behavioral parameters including dietary intake and physical activity. The field urgently needs a theoretical model to characterize mechanisms whereby self-monitoring performed via these new technological capabilities can be expected to influence behavior. A key question will be whether new automated self-monitoring capabilities support maintenance of healthy lifestyle change by making self-regulation less burdensome, or whether they thwart maintenance by eliminating the need to exercise effortful cognitive processes that are integral to self-regulation.
Subjects: Health Behavior
Telemedicine
Publication Types: Lecture
Webcast
 
NLM Classification: W 83.1
NLM ID: 101629972
CIT Live ID: 13903
Permanent link: https://videocast.nih.gov/watch=13903

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