JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Physical inactivity is associated with adverse health outcomes among Asian Americans, who have the lowest rates of meeting of physical activity guidelines compared to other racial and ethnic groups. Mobile application-based interventions are a promising approach to promote healthy behaviors. However, there is a lack of app-based interventions focused on improving physical activity among Asian Americans whose primary language is not English.

Objective:

This pilot study aimed to assess the feasibility and acceptability of a 5-week intervention using a culturally and linguistically adapted evidence-based mobile phone application with an accelerometer program to promote physical activity among Chinese-, Tagalog-, or Vietnamese-speaking Americans.

Methods:

Participants were recruited through collaborations with community-based organizations. The intervention was adapted from a 12-month physical activity randomized controlled trial involving the app and accelerometer for English-speaking adults. Sociodemographic characteristics, baseline physical activity, lifestyle factors, and physical measurements were collected at the baseline visit. A 7-day run-in period was conducted to screen for participants who could wear a Fitbit One® accelerometer and/or complete the app daily step diary. During the 4-week intervention period, participants wore the accelerometer and reported their daily steps in the app. Participants also received daily messages to reinforce key contents taught during an in-person educational session, remind them to input steps, and provide tailored feedback. Feasibility measures were percentage of eligible participants completing the run-in period and percentage of participants who used the app diary for at least 5 days out of 7 days during the intervention period. We conducted post-study participant interviews to explore intervention acceptability.

Results:

Nineteen participants were enrolled at the beginning of the study with the mean age being 47 years old (standard deviation (SD) = 13.3; range 29-70) and 58% female. Of the participants, 26% were Chinese, 32% were Vietnamese, and 42% were Filipino. All participants met run-in criteria to proceed with the intervention. Adherence to the app diary ranged from 73.7% in week 2 to 94.2% in week 4. The daily average steps per week from accelerometers increased each week from 8,451 steps (SD = 3,378) during the run-in period to 10,930 steps (SD = 4,213) in week 4. Participants reported positive experiences including increased motivation to walk and enjoyment of being able to monitor their physical activity.

Conclusions:

This is the first pilot study of a multi-component intervention and evidence-based mobile phone application to promote physical activity among Asian Americans who use apps in Chinese, Tagalog, and/or Vietnamese. Our study demonstrated high feasibility and acceptability among Asian Americans who use apps in traditional Chinese, Tagalog, and Vietnamese. Future work focused on multilingual mobile apps to address disparities in physical inactivity among Asian Americans should be considered.