TY - JOUR
T1 - A culturally relevant smartphone-delivered physical activity intervention for African American women
T2 - Development and initial usability tests of smart walk
AU - Joseph, Rodney P.
AU - Keller, Colleen
AU - Vega-López, Sonia
AU - Adams, Marc A.
AU - English, Rebekah
AU - Hollingshead, Kevin
AU - Hooker, Steven P.
AU - Todd, Michael
AU - Gaesser, Glenn A.
AU - Ainsworth, Barbara E.
N1 - Funding Information:
The development of Smart Walk was made possible through postdoctoral training and early career development grants awarded to the PI by the NIH/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (K99HL129012 and R00HL129012). The research team is thankful to the funding agencies, community members, and participants who have contributed and supported the development of this research.
Funding Information:
The development of the Smart Walk interventions occurred over a 3-year period. It was made possible through a National Institutes of Health (NIH) career development award (ie, K99HL129012 and R00HL129012) and involved expertise from a diverse set of researchers, software engineers, industry professionals (ie, videographer/photographer and copyeditor), and intended users of the intervention. The methods used emphasize the importance of creating a transdisciplinary research team when developing innovative approaches to address major public health issues and the significance of conducting extensive formative research with end users of an intervention.
Publisher Copyright:
© Rodney P P Joseph, Colleen Keller, Sonia Vega-López, Marc A Adams, Rebekah English, Kevin Hollingshead, Steven P Hooker, Michael Todd, Glenn A Gaesser, Barbara E Ainsworth. Originally published in JMIR mHealth and uHealth (http://mhealth.jmir.org), 02.03.2020. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR mHealth and uHealth, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://mhealth.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Background: Smart Walk is a culturally relevant, social cognitive theory-based, smartphone-delivered intervention designed to increase physical activity (PA) and reduce cardiometabolic disease risk among African American (AA) women. Objective: This study aimed to describe the development and initial usability testing results of Smart Walk. Methods: Smart Walk was developed in 5 phases. Phases 1 to 3 focused on initial intervention development, phase 4 involved usability testing, and phase 5 included intervention refinement based on usability testing results. In phase 1, a series of 9 focus groups with 25 AA women (mean age 38.5 years, SD 7.8; mean BMI 39.4 kg/m2, SD 7.3) was used to identify cultural factors associated with PA and ascertain how constructs of social cognitive theory can be leveraged in the design of a PA intervention. Phase 2 included the analysis of phase 1 qualitative data and development of the structured PA intervention. Phase 3 focused on the technical development of the smartphone app used to deliver the intervention. Phase 4 consisted of a 1-month usability trial of Smart Walk (n=12 women; mean age 35.0 years, SD 8.5; mean BMI 40 kg/m2, SD 5.0). Phase 5 included refinement of the intervention based on the usability trial results. Results: The 5-phase process resulted in the development of the Smart Walk smartphone-delivered PA intervention. This PA intervention was designed to target social cognitive theory constructs of behavioral capability, outcome expectations, social support, self-efficacy, and self-regulation and address deep structure sociocultural characteristics of collectivism, racial pride, and body appearance preferences of AA women. Key features of the smartphone app included (1) personal profile pages, (2) multimedia PA promotion modules (ie, electronic text and videos), (3) discussion boards, and (4) a PA self-monitoring tool. Participants also received 3 PA promotion text messages each week. Conclusions: The development process of Smart Walk was designed to maximize the usability, cultural relevance, and impact of the smartphone-delivered PA intervention.
AB - Background: Smart Walk is a culturally relevant, social cognitive theory-based, smartphone-delivered intervention designed to increase physical activity (PA) and reduce cardiometabolic disease risk among African American (AA) women. Objective: This study aimed to describe the development and initial usability testing results of Smart Walk. Methods: Smart Walk was developed in 5 phases. Phases 1 to 3 focused on initial intervention development, phase 4 involved usability testing, and phase 5 included intervention refinement based on usability testing results. In phase 1, a series of 9 focus groups with 25 AA women (mean age 38.5 years, SD 7.8; mean BMI 39.4 kg/m2, SD 7.3) was used to identify cultural factors associated with PA and ascertain how constructs of social cognitive theory can be leveraged in the design of a PA intervention. Phase 2 included the analysis of phase 1 qualitative data and development of the structured PA intervention. Phase 3 focused on the technical development of the smartphone app used to deliver the intervention. Phase 4 consisted of a 1-month usability trial of Smart Walk (n=12 women; mean age 35.0 years, SD 8.5; mean BMI 40 kg/m2, SD 5.0). Phase 5 included refinement of the intervention based on the usability trial results. Results: The 5-phase process resulted in the development of the Smart Walk smartphone-delivered PA intervention. This PA intervention was designed to target social cognitive theory constructs of behavioral capability, outcome expectations, social support, self-efficacy, and self-regulation and address deep structure sociocultural characteristics of collectivism, racial pride, and body appearance preferences of AA women. Key features of the smartphone app included (1) personal profile pages, (2) multimedia PA promotion modules (ie, electronic text and videos), (3) discussion boards, and (4) a PA self-monitoring tool. Participants also received 3 PA promotion text messages each week. Conclusions: The development process of Smart Walk was designed to maximize the usability, cultural relevance, and impact of the smartphone-delivered PA intervention.
KW - African-American
KW - EHealth
KW - Exercise
KW - Heart diseases
KW - MHealth
KW - Minority health
KW - Primary prevention
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UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85081042760&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.2196/15346
DO - 10.2196/15346
M3 - Article
C2 - 32130198
AN - SCOPUS:85081042760
SN - 2291-5222
VL - 8
JO - JMIR mHealth and uHealth
JF - JMIR mHealth and uHealth
IS - 3
M1 - e15346
ER -