Evaluation of the "Americans in Motion - Healthy Interventions" Project

Summary

This research project brings together the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) National Research Network (AAFP-NRN) and the AAFP's public health initiative, Americans In Motion (AIM). This project will develop and evaluate a practice improvement program to improve family physicians' delivery of effective patient-centered behavior change interventions for "fitness" (physical activity, nutrition and emotional well-being). The investigators seek to develop a unique program that positions fitness in a central role as "the treatment of choice" when dealing with issues of prevention and treatment of chronic conditions. In addition, this newly developed program is intended to help shift the paradigm of family physicians' use of common advice-giving methods to more effective patient-centered lifestyle counseling. Ultimately, this program will seek to improve care for all patients through fitness-related physician interventions.

Outcomes: This study design will allow the investigators to evaluate whether (and how) dissemination of educational materials impacts patient intervention by first engaging clinicians and staff in their personal use of these materials. This project will also evaluate the effects of the behavioral change tools, as well as, the added impact of new physiologic feedback measures (HOMA-IR and NMR Lipoprotein profiles) on physical activity and diet in study participants.

Conclusion: Primary care offices can become more effective settings to help patients improve physical activity, diet and emotional well-being. Demonstrating the value and impact of creating "healthy offices" that endorse and support clinicians, office staff and patients in the use of effective educational materials fits well with the new model of care as part of the AAFP's "Future of Family Medicine" initiatives, which emphasize the importance of lifestyle decisions and supporting successful changes in behaviors within primary care. This project will help define how to accomplish this.

Conditions

• Physical Activity
• Diet
• Mental Health

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Enhanced Office

Clinicians and office staff personally engage in AIM-HI fitness program, and promote program to patients

BEHAVIORAL

Conventional Office

Conventional office: Clinicians and office staff are not personally engaged in the AIM-HI fitness program, but promote program to patients.

BEHAVIORAL

AIM-HI program with enhanced feedback

Patient receives feedback on two novel indicators of their individual cardiovascular risk that: 1)appear to relate to obesity and lack of physical activity, and 2) may show relatively rapid change with improvements in these areas. These are the Homeostatic Assay - Insulin Resistance or HOMA-IR and Nuclear Molecular Resonance (NMR) lipoprotein profiles (NMRLP). These patients and their physicians also will receive periodic feedback on other outcome measures, including BMI, blood pressure, a 3-minute step test, eating assessment, physical activity assessment, and emotional well-being assessment.

BEHAVIORAL

AIM-HI program and regular feedback

Patients will not receive feedback on two specific cardiovascular risk indicators (ie, Homeostatic Assay - Insulin Resistance, Nuclear Molecular Resonance lipoprotein profiles). However, patients will receive feedback on Body Mass Index, blood pressure, a 3-minute step test, eating assessment, physical activity assessment, and emotional well-being assessment.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• The PepsiCo Foundation

  collaborator OTHER

• American Academy of Family Physicians

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Wilson D Pace, MD, FAAFP · American Academy of Family Physicians

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Masking

NONE

Model

FACTORIAL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2007-07-31

Primary Completion

2009-04-30

Completion

2009-10-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations