Joanna Colgan

Development, Implementation, and Evaluation of Active Lions: A Campaign to Promote Active Travel to a University Campus

Purpose: To outline the development, implementation, and evaluation of a multistrategy intervention to promote active transportation, on a large university campus. Design: Single group pilot study. Setting: A large university in the Northeastern United States. Participants: University students (n = 563), faculty and staff (employees, n = 999) were included in the study. Intervention: The Active Lions campaign aimed to increase active transportation to campus for all students and employees. The campaign targeted active transport participation through the development of a smartphone application and the implementation of supporting social marketing and social media components. Measures: Component-specific measures included app user statistics, social media engagement, and reach of social marketing strategies. Overall evaluation included cross-sectional online surveys preintervention and postintervention of student and employee travel patterns and campaign awareness. Analysis: Number of active trips to campus were summed, and the percentage of trips as active was calculated. T tests compared the differences in outcomes from preintervention to postintervention. Results: Students had a higher percentage of active trips postintervention (64.2%) than preintervention (49.2%; t = 3.32, P = .001), although there were no differences for employees (7.9% and 8.91%). Greater awareness of Active Lions was associated with greater active travel. Conclusion: This multistrategy approach to increase active transportation on a college campus provided insight on the process of developing and implementing a campaign with the potential for impacting health behaviors among campus members.

An Examination of Workplace Influences on Active Commuting in a Sample of University Employees.

CONTEXT Active commuting (AC; walking or biking) to work is associated with many benefits, though rates remain low. Employers can benefit from greater employee AC, through improved employee physical activity, though how the workplace is related to AC is unclear. OBJECTIVE The current study sought to examine how the workplace environment is related to AC participation. DESIGN This was a cross-sectional, online survey conducted in April-May 2014. PARTICIPANTS A volunteer sample of university employees (n = 551) was recruited. SETTING A large university in the northeastern United States. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES The online survey addressed travel habits, demographics, and workplace social and physical environment for AC. Pearson correlations and t tests were used to examine relationships between the percentage of all trips as AC and workplace influences and a multivariate regression analysis predicted AC participation. RESULTS Participants reported 0.86 ± 2.6 AC trips per week. Percentage of trips as AC trips associated with perceived coworker AC (P < .001), parking availability (r = -0.22, P < .001), and bike parking availability (r = 0.24, P < .001). Individuals reporting greater walking time from their parking spot to their workplace reported a higher percentage of trips as AC compared with those with closer parking (P < .001). Individuals with a parking pass were less likely to AC than those with no permit (P < .001). The full multivariate model explained 42.5% of the variance in percentage of trips per week via AC (P < .001), having a parking pass (B = 0.23, P < .001), parking availability (B = -0.17, P < .001), perceived coworkers AC (B = 0.08, P = .02), and greater perceived walk time to campus (B = -0.43, P < .001) as significant predictors. CONCLUSIONS This study provided insight into institutional influences on AC, indicating that policy, infrastructure, and programmatic initiatives could be used to promote workplace AC.

A Social Media Campaign for Promoting Active Travel to a University Campus

Context: Promoting regular physical activity can be challenging. Active travel (AT), walking and biking for transportation, is a way to achieve more activity, but rates remain low in the United States. With increased technology use, social media is one way to expand reach. Objective: The purpose of this study was to describe the reach of social media in a campaign to promote AT to a university campus. Design: This was an observational study. Setting: The Active Lions campaign promoted AT to and on a large university campus for employees and students. The campaign included local events promoting AT, a smartphone app, and social media postings (Facebook, Twitter) from August 2014 to August 2015. Main Outcome Measures: The social media postings included different types of messages about AT. These posts were then examined and categorized, and any responses or interactions were recorded to identify trends for engagement. Results: The Facebook page had 177 followers, educational posts elicited the most responses, posts with pictures averaged 6 clicks and 1 like, and posts with links averaged 3 clicks and 1 like. Active Lions had 103 Twitter followers, educational posts on Twitter had the most activity, with 149 interactions. Conclusion: Facebook and Twitter appear to reach some of their followers in motivating and promoting regular physical activity. It is important, however, to recognize that posting on social media targets the younger population. Therefore, to reach more adults, it may be more beneficial to find other tactics to promote regular physical activity.