Mobile Intervention to Enhance Physical Activity in the Chronically Ill

PROJECT SUMMARY This project aims to fill the urgent need for a safe and engaging intervention that promotes physical activity in a population of patients with chronic diseases (e.g., diabetes, asthma, osteoarthritis, and chronic heart failure). Compelling evidence suggests that physical activity is an effective therapeutic intervention for numerous chronic diseases. However, in spite of the wide consensus that physical activity should be an integral treatment component for many chronic diseases, most patients remain inactive1 due to a variety of barriers and obstacles they regularly encounter. We therefore propose to innovatively adapt an efficacious exercise-promoting intervention that targets sedentary employees2 to a population with specific needs andconstraints that result from chronic disease and deliver this intervention as a mobile application that can be accessed via smartphone, tablet, or computer. We propose a program design that follows recommendations derived from a recent NIH-funded meta- a