Race Differences in Physical Activity Uptake Within a Workplace Wellness Program: A Comparison of Black and White Employees

Abstract

Purpose: To examine differences in physical activity (PA) uptake between black and white employees during a financial incentive-based workplace intervention. Design: Prospective cohort study from July 2014 to June 2015 (NCT02850094). Setting: Tertiary academic medical center. Participants: Forty-three black and 182 white nonclinical employees. Intervention: Participants self-selected or were assigned to teams. Participants completed a 24-week intervention receiving rewards for meeting weekly PA goals (increasing moderate-to-vigorous PA [MVPA] by 10% from previous week or meeting Guidelines threshold of 150 minutes of MVPA). Measures: Outcomes included weekly MVPA in minutes, average daily step counts, number of weeks meeting personal goals and the Guidelines, and Fitbit adherence in days and weeks. Analysis: We performed an analysis of covariance for each outcome, with race as the primary independent variable of interest, adjusting for demographic and health-related covariates. Results: During the intervention, blacks walked 9128 steps per day while whites walked 7826 steps per day, a difference of approximately 1300 steps ( P < .05). Blacks also demonstrated a greater uptake in both steps and MVPA from baseline than did whites, resulting in similar MVPA throughout the intervention. Conclusions: Findings suggest that workplace PA interventions using financial incentives may result in similar engagement in MVPA among white and black employees, while black employees walk more steps during the intervention. Limitations include a primarily white female sample which may not generalize.

Perceived Physical Competence, Self-Esteem, and Leadership among Girls: A Program Evaluation of GOALS (Girls Organizing and Learning Sport)

“…Lastly, the ethnic background of the participants was significantly associated with physical competence scores, such that Non-White (i.e., Black, Aboriginal, Arabic, Asian) participants increased their physical competence scores at post-program compared to White participants. This outcome is in line with other research that has shown that racial minorities typically gain more benefits from different types of programming [58,59].…”

Use of Fitbit Devices in Physical Activity Intervention Studies Across the Life Course: Narrative Review

“…The most commonly used device was the Fitbit Flex, which was used in 9 studies [ 20 , 58 , 66 , 67 , 69 , 71 , 72 , 79 , 83 ]. There were 14 studies that used Fitbit for both intervention and measurement purposes, 11 for intervention only, and 3 for measurement only.…”

“…Other studies reported the percentage of days on which participants were adherent to wear instructions: 86% [ 58 ], 88% [ 66 ], 97% [ 71 ], 93% [ 72 ], and 76%-86% [ 64 ]. Furthermore, 9 studies also used a minimum wear time criterion defined by either the number of hours (eg, 8 or 10 hours per day) or steps (eg, 100 or 2000 steps per day) [ 59 , 62 , 67 , 69 , 71 , 74 , 75 , 79 , 82 ]. With a minimum wear time criterion of 100 steps per day, 1 study reported that 97% of the participants were adherent [ 69 ].…”

“…With a minimum wear time criterion of 100 steps per day, 1 study reported that 97% of the participants were adherent [ 69 ]. A minimum wear criterion of 10 hours per day allowed another study to report 18 of 26 average valid weeks of Fitbit wear [ 79 ], whereas another study used the same criterion to report that participants were adherent to the criterion on 6 days per week on average [ 75 ]. A minimum criterion of 10 hours per day was also used in another study to report 5%-9% of days on which participants did not meet the criterion on average [ 82 ].…”

An interactive technology enhanced coaching intervention for Black women with hypertension: Randomized controlled trial study protocol

“…Studies have used the CDSMP with older Black men and women (Gitlin et al, 2008;Rose et al, 2008), Blacks and other races (Horowitz et al, 2011;Kronish et al, 2014;Smith et al, 2013), and other minority populations (Tomioka et al, 2012;Wong et al, 2004), revealing improved health and psychological outcomes. Before this study, the Fitbit Plus platform had been used primarily in hospital/clinic settings (Hsu et al, 2016;Moore et al, 2014) and employer wellness programs with majority White samples (Meints et al, 2019). Working together, the CDSMP and the Fitbit Plus platform provide a multifaceted approach that could result in increased knowledge of self-care management and consistent active engagement in the use of several self-tracking tools to improve the health status of Black women with HTN.…”