Measuring, analyzing and mapping environmental influences on (and changes in) spatial patterns: evidence for just-in-time adaptive interventions

Interventions that focus on lifestyle-related changes are needed to prevent the development of chronic diseases. However, the majority of people experience difficulties in adopting and maintaining healthy behaviors in the long run. Research shows that health behaviors such as physical activity and sleep, eating behaviors and smoking lapses vary from day to day at the individual level, often in response to a dynamic interplay of intra-individual (e.g., motivation), inter-individual (i.e., social support) and environmental/contextual factors. There is growing evidence that environmental exposures are important to consider in interventions. Since obesity and chronic diseases are increasing, prevention programs that also take environmental influences into account must be developed. 

Adaptive interventions are a novel and recommended approach in order to achieve a sustainable health behavior change. One novel mHealth approach that seems promising for long-term behavioural change is called “just-in-time adaptive intervention” (JITAI). JITAIs adapt to day-to-day variations in people and the environment, which will increase engagement and acceptance. This is essential for long term behaviour change. Despite its promising value, research is in its early stages. Relatively few JITAIs have thus far been developed and tested. 

November 2020 the project “Measuring, analysing and mapping environmental influences on (and changes in) spatial patterns: evidence for just-in-time adaptive interventions” funded by ZonMw started within the WUR Chair groups Consumption and Healthy Lifestyles and Laboratory of Geo-information Science and Remote Sensing. In this project, the goal is to create a just-in-time-adaptive-intervention (JITAI) for eating behaviour that is capable of measuring, analysing and mapping movement patterns, the enabling and hindering contextual factors on health behaviours in different contexts and to create meaningful movement patterns that offer insight in behaviour of people. This information will be used to send tailored interventions to individuals via their smartphone, which aim to initiate behaviour change.  

We previously conducted focus groups, which insights were used to develop the app. We are also currently conducting a delphi study to get more insight into what is needed to develop a JITAI for eating behaviour. The next step is to conduct a pilot study in which we test our app with the aim to get insight into what factors influence the receptiveness of people. Receptiveness is the person’s ability to receive, process, and use the support provided, which is a prerequisite to achieve behaviour change. In the pilot study we want to investigate when and where the right time is to send notifications to people and for what type of interventions

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