JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

More than half (55%) of Latinas do not meet aerobic physical activity (PA) guidelines, and frequently cite time, childcare and transportation as barriers to PA. In addition to linguistic adaptations for this population, successful PA interventions for Latinas addressed these barriers through remote intervention delivery approaches (e.g., mail, phone, or web-delivered).

Objective:

To evaluate 6-month outcomes of a randomized trial comparing a Spanish-language individually-tailored, website-delivered PA intervention (Original); to an enhanced version with text messages, and additional features (Enhanced). Further, we evaluate if increases in PA at 6 months were moderated by baseline activity status.

Methods:

195 Latina women age 18-65 years participated in a trial comparing the efficacy of the enhanced versus original intervention at initiating PA behavior change. We examined min/week of accelerometer-measured PA in the Enhanced vs. Original arms, and proportion of each arm meeting aerobic PA guidelines (150 minutes/week at 6 months). For moderator analyses, participants were classified as inactive (0 min/week) or low active (1-90 min/week) at baseline, measured via 7 Day Physical Activity Recall interview.

Results:

PA increased from 19.7 mins/week (SD=47.9) at baseline to 46.9 (SD=66.2) at 6 months in the Enhanced arm vs. 20.6 (SD=42.7) to 42.9 (SD=78.2) in the Original arm (P=.78). Overall, 30% of the Enhanced group met aerobic PA guidelines at 6 months, compared to 21% of the Original group (OR=1.75, 95% CI: .87-3.55). Baseline PA (inactive vs. low active) moderated treatment effects on PA. For inactive participants, there were no group differences at 6 months (b=7.1, SE=22.8, P=.75), while low active participants increased more in Enhanced than Original (b=72.5, SE=27.9, P=.01). For low-active participants, 45% of the Enhanced group met PA guidelines at 6 months, vs. 20% of the Original arm; (OR=3.29, 95% CI:1.05-11.31). For inactive participants, there were no group differences (24% vs. 21% for Enhanced vs. Original, OR=1.28, 95% CI: .54-3.06).

Conclusions:

Intervention effects were conditional on baseline PA. For low-active Latinas, the enhanced intervention was more effective at increasing PA. Additional tailored intervention enhancements may be necessary to increase PA for inactive Latinas. Clinical Trial: Clinicaltrials.gov NCT03491592, https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT03491592