Mobile Phone-Based Physical Activity Intervention on University Staff

The overall goal of this study is to test personalized mobile phone-based physical activity interventions among students at the University of California, Berkeley. Most physical fitness applications for smartphones and activity trackers use a constant goal for the number of steps each day. However, if the step goals are dynamically adjusted according to past behavior, then the corresponding goals may encourage individuals to increase their physical activity level. This study consists of a randomized controlled trial in which we are assessing the efficacy of four different algorithms for calculating personalized goals for the number of steps each day and for determining which motivational messages to send each day.