West Kingston, RI – August 16, 2012 – Pro-Change Behavior Systems, Inc. has entered Health in Motion in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine (AJPM) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Childhood Obesity Challenge. Through this online competition the hope is to find innovative and promising solutions for healthier kids. Creative ideas, programs, projects, and interventions are eligible. Submissions will be judged by AJPM reviewers, a panel of expert judges, and through popular voting.
Health in Motion is a self-directed program for adolescents that targets physical activity, fruit and vegetable consumption, and limited TV viewing. Using the Transtheoretical Model as a guiding theoretical framework, the program utilizes best practices of behavior change to offer individually tailored guidance on multiple risks through an efficient and low-cost approach. Using interactive technologies to reach populations of adolescents with science-based and personalized guidance, Health in Motion is a solution embedded with the capability for wide reach and impact.
Health in Motion was developed with funding from the National Institutes of Health and has been tested in two separate randomized clinical trials with 1,800 students from 8 high schools and with 4,158 students from 20 middle schools. Across both trials the program was found to impact the number of days doing 60 minutes or more of physical activity, daily consumption of fruits and vegetables, initiating and maintaining all three of the behaviors, reducing the number of behavioral risks, and progressing on multiple behaviors. Solid demonstrated evidence supports the utilization of Health in Motion to change energy balance behaviors.
Health in Motion is currently being distributed by employers as a behavior change offering for their employees’ dependents and by wellness centers to their youths members. The program platform is flexible with many possible options for dissemination. It can be delivered in classrooms, at youth or community organizations, in health care settings, by health care insurers, by school nurses, by primary care providers, or integrated into educational textbooks and curriculum. Health in Motion can be used as a stand-alone offering or in conjunction with environmental, curriculum, and policy initiatives.
Submissions to the Challenge will be judged on three criteria: innovation of the idea; likelihood of being translated into real world action; and reach/evidence of large population-wide impact. The judging panel will identify 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prize winners. In addition, there will be a popular choice winner determined by the number of votes.