Effectiveness and Cost of Two Stair-Climbing Interventions—Less is More

Abstract

Purpose.

The current study compared two interventions for promotion of stair climbing in the workplace, an information-based intervention at a health information day and an environmental intervention (point-of-choice prompts), for their effectiveness in changing stair climbing and cost per employee.

Design.

Interrupted time-series design.

Setting.

Four buildings on a university campus.

Subjects.

Employees at a university in the United Kingdom.

Interventions.

Two stair-climbing interventions were compared: (1) a stand providing information on stair climbing at a health information day and (2) point-of-choice prompts (posters).

Measures.

Observers recorded employees' gender and method of ascent (n = 4279). The cost of the two interventions was calculated.

Analysis.

Logistic regression.

Results.

There was no significant difference between baseline (47.9% stair climbing) and the Workplace Wellbeing Day (48.8% stair climbing), whereas the prompts increased stair climbing (52.6% stair climbing). The health information day and point-of-choice prompts cost $773.96 and $31.38, respectively.

Conclusion.

The stand at the health information day was more expensive than the point-of-choice prompts and was inferior in promoting stair climbing. It is likely that the stand was unable to encourage stair climbing because only 3.2% of targeted employees visited the stand. In contrast, the point-of-choice prompts were potentially visible to all employees using the buildings and hence better for disseminating the stair climbing message to the target audience. (Am J Health Promot 2011;25[4]:231–236.)