VioCare Technologies, Inc through funding from NIH / NIDDK
Funding Period:
2005-2008
Study Design:
N/A
Purpose:
To demonstrate the feasibility of creating and running an incentive-based community website portal designed to convey information about diabetes prevention and control. While efficacy has been established for some diabetes prevention and control strategies, as epitomized by the Diabetes Prevention Program, the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of strategies suitable for application under real-world conditions for the most part has not.
Further Study Details:
This web-based health promotion system has been designed as a virtual “navigator” through and around the obstacles to improve lifestyle for each user. The system helps users identify their personal barriers to lifestyle change, provides them with strategies for addressing each barrier, and identifies community resources pertinent to each. Project activities included the recruitment of local community organizations to participate as a community health consortium; the development of a comprehensive community health web portal consisting of a navigation core, impediment profiler, community toolbox and rewards system; and final evaluation of the system to determine feasibility. The Princeton, NJ metropolitan area served as the pilot community. The PRC’s contribution to this project included the development of an inventory of impediments (barriers) to making healthful lifestyle changes, based on focus groups and review by an expert panel; creating a set of strategies to overcome each impediment; and evaluation.
Findings:
During the three-year funding period, Viocareassembled a project advisory panel;developed an extensive community wellness portal, www.princetonlivingwell.com, with a wellness navigation core, an impediment profiler, a community toolbox, and a wellness loyalty rewards program;enrolled more than 70 businesses to participate in the rewards program; and registered more than 2,000 members. In addition, the research team completed evaluations based on focus groups, structured questionnaires, and analysis of system usages.Since its launch, the Princeton Living Well (PLW) website has had more than 400,000 page hits with more than 200,000 page views by internet users. The PLW website averages more than 15,000 web visits per month and now has more than 2100 members (as of November 2009). The number of business partners has grown to 72, as has the number of community partners has grown to 14 (as of November 2009). The feedback received from both web portal users and business partners indicates that the pilot implementation of the NnoLEDGE web portal was successful. Viocare is currently seeking funding to complete the NnoLEDGE program, expand on its basic set of features, and evaluate its implementation and sustainability in additional communities.
Eligibility:
Community health organizations, local businesses, and community residents in the Princeton, NJ metropolitan area.
Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center