Lay summary
Adults in developed countries spend most of their time sitting, and very little time doing physical activity. Low physical activity and high levels of sitting are both independently associated with poor health. These behaviours may be viewed together as an 'activity profile'. Louise Foley is an emerging researcher based at the University of Auckland. She aims to understand the activity profile in a New Zealand context, particularly within the workplace, and develop new technologies to assess these behaviours. She will then use these technologies to develop a fully automated intervention that seamlessly monitors behaviour and provides feedback appropriate to the individual's activity profile via mobile phone and email. The intervention will be pilot-tested to give a preliminary indication of the effects on health outcomes. Improving both sitting and physical activity behaviours simultaneously could potentially have greater positive impact on health than targeting either behaviour in isolation.