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.