Browsing by keyword "Rural health"
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Feasibility of promoting physical activity using mHEALTH technology in rural women: the step-2-it studyBACKGROUND: Rural women are more likely to be obese and have a higher risk for chronic disease than their non-rural counterparts. Inadequate physical activity (PA) at least in part contributes to this increased risk. Rural women face personal, social and environmental barriers to PA engagement. Interventions promoting walking among rural women have demonstrated success; however, few of these studies use text messaging to promote PA. METHODS: Step-2-It was a pilot study to assess the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of text-messaging combined with a pedometer to promote PA, specifically walking among English-speaking women, aged 40 and older, living in a rural, northwest Illinois county. Enrolled participants completed baseline assessments, received pedometers and two types of automated text messages: motivational messages to encourage walking, and accountability messages to report pedometer steps. Participants engaged in 3, 6, 9, and 12-week follow-ups to download pedometer data, and completed post-intervention assessments at 12 weeks. RESULTS: Of the 44 enrolled participants, 35 participants (79.5%) completed the intervention. Among completers, the proportion meeting PA guidelines increased from 31.4% (11/35) at baseline to 48.6% (17/35) at post-intervention, those with no PA decreased from 20% (7/35) to 17.1% (6/35). During weeks 1-12, when participants received motivational text messages, average participant daily step count was 5926 +/- 3590, and remained stable during the intervention. Pedometer readings were highly correlated with self-reported steps (r = 0.9703; p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Step-2-It was a feasible and acceptable walking intervention for older rural women. Technology, including text messaging, should be investigated further as an enhancement to interventions for rural women. Trial Registration on Clinicaltrials.gov: NCT04812756, registered on March 22, 2021.
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Technology, community, and equity: Considerations for collecting social determinants dataGathering detailed information on an individual’s neighborhood environment is becoming increasingly recognized as a crucial component of understanding the impact that social determinants have on individual and public health, and this has been further highlighted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Emerging research clearly demonstrates COVID-19’s differential impact on underserved and rural communities, and it is imperative to adequately capture important neighborhood-level predictors of health outcomes to better understand the extent to which these communities have been affected, and to equitably promote their recovery and healing. mHealth tools have drastically transformed the framework of data collection within clinical and population health research and can significantly reduce accessibility barriers for research participants to allow for convenient, continuous real-time health and activity space assessments. Digital interventions leveraging remote data collection, and providing study participants with requisite devices when necessary, serves to bridge the digital divide that would otherwise preclude rural populations’ participation in key research opportunities for advancing health equity.
