title: Walking to wellness in an ageing sedentary university community: design, method and protocol.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Older workers are less physically active and have a higher rate and cost of injury than younger workers and so have reduced work-ability. Concurrently, sedentary behaviour in the workplace, in transport and in the home is increasing and has harmful health effects. Walking is a familiar, convenient, and free form of health-enhancing physical activity that can be integrated into working life and sustained into older age however workplace walking programs targeted at older workers have not been evaluated.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  We designed a randomised-controlled trial to evaluate the impact of a phased individually-tailored 10-week walking program on work-day steps, health status and work-ability of employees at an Australian university with an ageing sedentary workforce.
  
  
  METHODS
  A convenience sample of 154 academic and administrative employees aged 45-70 years will be recruited and randomly allocated to either an experimental (walking) group or control (maintain usual activity) group. Participants will be provided with a pedometer and complete measures for step count, % body fat, waist circumference, blood pressure, self-reported physical activity, psychological wellbeing and work-ability, at baseline and end-intervention. 'Walkers' will select approaches tailored to their individual preference, psychological characteristics or life circumstances. Two distinct intervention phases will target adoption (weeks 2-5) and adherence (weeks 7-12) using 'Stages of Behaviour Change' principles. An ANOVA will test for effect of treatment on outcome with the baseline value entered as a covariate.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study will test whether tailoring worksite walking is an effective means of promoting health-enhancing physical activity in ageing sedentary workers.
authors.affiliation: Ageing Work and Health Research Unit, Faculty of Health Sciences, The University of Sydney, PO Box 170 Lidcombe, NSW 1825, Australia. martin.mackey@sydney.edu.au
authors.forename: Martin G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Mackey
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bohle
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Taylor
authors.forename: Tia
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Di Biase
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: McLoughlin
authors.forename: Katherine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Purnell
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods*; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010349:Patient Compliance; D018579:Patient Selection; D010809:Physical Fitness; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic / Q000379:methods; D018401:Sample Size; D057185:Sedentary Behavior; D014495:Universities; D016138:Walking; D017132:Workplace