Effect of web-based healthcare system on behavior modification

People´s lifestyle habits, such as physical activities and food choice, must change to prevent the incident rate of metabolic syndrome from increasing. However, changing a lifestyle habit requires continued effort. Our previous six-month trial with a networked health guidance system showed that people could continue their efforts if they had a health nurse´s support and daily health and progress data. However, six months´ health guidance increases the burden on health nurses. To support people´s continuing efforts in changing lifestyle habits, we have developed a web-based healthcare system that provides other people´s daily data in order to encourage a user´s behavior modification by enabling that user to follow the progress of other anonymous users. A 6-month trial was held in 2009 in Nakatsugawa City, Japan. The participants were to walk with a pedometer every day and upload data once a week. After uploading the data, they were asked to view other participants´ data. From the uploaded daily data, 70% of the participants continued to walk as an activity and to upload their data until the end of the trial. The results of the trial suggest that visualizing other people´s daily health and progress data with an IT system benefits users and encourages behavior modification.