title: A tailored Internet-plus-email intervention for increasing physical activity among ethnically-diverse women.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of an individually tailored, Internet-plus-email physical activity intervention designed for adult women.
  
  
  METHODS
  Healthy and ethnically-diverse adult females (N=156) (mean age=42.8 years, 65% Caucasian) from California were randomly assigned to an intervention (access to a tailored website and weekly emails) or wait-list control group. Participants completed web-based assessments of physical activity, stage of behavior change, and psychosocial variables at baseline, one month, two months, and three months. Data were collected during 2006-2007. Multilevel random coefficient modeling examined group differences in rates of change.
  
  
  RESULTS
  As compared to the control condition, the intervention group increased walking (+69 versus +32 min per week) and total moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (+23 versus -25 min per week) after three months. The intervention did not impact stage of behavior change or any of the other psychosocial variables.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  A tailored, Internet-based intervention for adult women had a positive effect on walking and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity in an ethnically-diverse sample. However, given the lack of comparable research contact in the control group, these findings should be taken cautiously.
authors.affiliation: Health Promotion Research Branch, Behavioral Research Program, Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20852, USA.
authors.forename: Genevieve Fridlund
authors.initials: GF
authors.lastname: Dunton
authors.forename: Trina P
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Robertson
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002140:California; D034742:Electronic Mail; D005006:Ethnicity; D015444:Exercise; D005260:Female; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods*; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008875:Middle Aged; D012923:Social Class; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D016138:Walking