Personalized Exercise Program (PEPRx)

 

Personalized Physical Activity and Nutrition Program

 

The University of Illinois at Chicago is collaborating with the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago on a 3-year grant funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reduce secondary conditions in people with mobility disabilities through a telephone-based coaching intervention that focuses on improvements in nutrition and physical activity. The study is titled, “A Personalized Physical Activity and Nutrition Program for Overweight/Obese Adults with Mobility Disabilities.”

 

This project extends our research on the efficacy of personalized physical activity programs for people with mobility disabilities. Our previous work (CDC #R04CCR518810, Project PEP - A Physician-Referred Community-Based Approach to Increasing Awareness and Sustainability of Physical Activity for Overweight Adults with Mobility Limitations) has shown that an intensive telephone-based personal health behavior coaching intervention can empower severely obese participants with mobility disabilities to make substantial increments in physical activity and a significant reduction in body weight.

 

The present study extends this work in three primary ways. First, it replicates the intervention to a broader target population of adults with mobility disabilities. Second, it is examining the effects of adding content and coaching on nutrition as an added intervention component in an effort to further enhance positive health outcomes. And third, the intervention protocol is being standardized and delivered through a train-the-trainer model to determine if our findings can generalize to other populations and to evaluate the potential utility of the program in future population-based public health research and practice (e.g., State disability and health programs, HMO).

 

The project is using information technology to facilitate key elements of the intervention, creating a platform for potential future expansion.  The PEP intervention model is shown below.

 

PEP Intervention Model:

 

 

 

Funding

 

Personalized Exercise Program (PEPRx) at the University of Illinois at Chicago is funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, Disability and Health Branch (Grant #5R01DD000134).