South Kingstown, RI – May 1, 2013. Kerry E. Evers, PhD, Senior Vice President at Pro-Change Behavior Systems, Inc. is the Co-Editor of the Special Section Multiple Health Behavior Change in the latest issue (March 2013) of the Translational Behavioral Medicine Journal: Practice, Policy, and Research. In her editorial, Dr. Evers comments on the “Advances in Multiple Health Behavior Change Research” and describes the Special Section as “spanning different populations (e.g., adults and adolescents, employees, health clinic patients), methods (e.g., quantitative and qualitative), and modalities (e.g., survey and intervention research).”
Two of the eight peer-reviewed papers published in the Special Section highlight Pro-Change’s programs, one on youth obesity prevention, and the other on adult stress management, weight management, and smoking cessation.
The article by Yin et al., titled “Treatment-enhanced Paired Action Contributes Substantially to Change Across Multiple Behaviors: Secondary Analyses of Five Randomized Trials,” explores different analytical methods to determine the consistency, robustness, and synergy in patterns of multiple concurrent behavior change outcomes. Data from five randomized trials of computer-tailored interventions that simultaneously treated multiple health behaviors were analyzed. Three of those five trials used Pro-Change programs. Yin et al. found that paired action (changes on both behaviors in a pair) contributed substantially more to the treatment related outcomes than changes in just one of the behaviors in a pair. These results help us to understand how Pro-Change programs can increase impacts on multiple behaviors and populations.
The Bottom Line Statement in the Policy Brief by Amy A. Eyler, PhD, of Washington University, states that Pro-Change’s Health in Motion youth program “was not only effective in initiating and maintaining energy balance behaviors, but also in reducing smoking and alcohol acquisition in early adolescents.” Eyler is highlighting Velicer’s et al’s study “Multiple Behavior Interventions to Prevent Substance Abuse and Increase Energy Balance Behaviors in Middle School Students.” Health in Motion has been used by middle and high schools, by dependents of employees, and YMCAs, and could be used by Accountable Care Organizations for families and communities.
About Translational Behavioral Medicine Journal
Translational Behavioral Medicine: Practice, Policy, and Research (TBM) is an official international peer-reviewed publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine. TBM’s mission is to engage, inform, and dialogue between research, practice, and policy. TBM features original empirical studies on the effectiveness or implementation of interventions which explicitly state the impact of the findings for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers. For more information, please go to
www.springer.com/medicine/journal/13142.