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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Making it work: Using the Internet to promote positive health behaviors in low literate populations

Amy S. Billing, MSSA, Nancy L. Atkinson, PhD, Robert S. Gold, PhD, DrPH, Sylvette La Touche, MA, NCC, Fang Yan, MD, and Jing Tian, MD. Department of Public and Community Health, Public Health Informatics Research Laboratory, University of Maryland, College Park, Suite 2387 Valley Drive, College Park, MD 20742, 301-405-2468, billing@umd.edu

The University of Maryland's Public Health Informatics Research Laboratory and Maryland Cooperative Extension have collaborated on a nutrition education demonstration project featuring the "Eat Smart, Be Fit, Maryland!" website, a health promotion tool developed as part of this project. The project involves a comprehensive assessment of community needs and strengths, a community health promotion intervention, and evaluation components. Three strategies are being used in Maryland counties to promote access to and use of this website by food stamp recipients. These include: providing computers and training to families for home website access, partnering with organizations and publicizing community website access, and website promotion through a communication campaign. Data collection is being conducted via online and paper-pencil surveys with experimental and control participants to compare behavior change over time for website users and non-users.

This presentation includes a website tour to demonstrate how websites, including web tools and tailored feedback, can be used to conduct health education with low literate audiences. A discussion of the capacity of online interventions to provide interactive and personalized experiences for website users (particularly for underserved populations) will be included. I will present the results of a 29-item health assessment survey comparing nutrition, physical activity, and food budgeting behaviors (collected at baseline and at timed intervals) among website users and non-users. Data comparing stage of change movement over time for these two groups will be discussed. Evaluation results examining the effectiveness of varied intervention strategies in promoting website usage and behavior change will also be presented.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant will be able to