Studying wearable health technology in the workplace using the Behavior Change Wheel: a systematic literature review and content analysis

ABSTRACT

Wearable Health Technology (WHT) is considered to be fast, feasible, and effective in workplace health promotion programs. This study aims to analyze behavior change strategies applied to WHT products used by employees in health promotion programs. A systematic literature review of WHT in workplace health promotion between 2006 and 2020 was conducted. The Behavior Change Wheel (BCW) was used to undertake the content analysis. We identified 14 articles of WHT in the workplace. First, physical activity and weight management were the most common health issue. Second, using the BCW, we found guidelines, regulation and communication were the most frequently applied policy categories. Third, education, enablement and training were the most common intervention functions. For example, the promoter could provide health education information by WHT. Moreover, encouraging online would motivate employees to improve health behavior. There has been a growing interest in WHT with increasing complexity in research designs and specifications. While using WHT can be an appropriate strategy to adopt as employee health projects, other interventions should be considered, for incentivization and modeling, etc. The results of this study suggest using WHT should take related health behavior theories or variables into consideration to form a comprehensive health promotion programs.

KEYWORDS:

• Wearable health technology
• Behavior Change Wheel
• employees
• intervention functions
• policy categories
• health behavior

Abbreviations

BCW: Behavior Change Wheel; BMI: Body Mass Index; Coe: Coercion; Com: Communication; COM-B: Capability, Opportunity, Motivation, and Behavior; DBP: Diastolic Blood Pressure; Edu: Education; Ena: Enablement; Envi: Environmental restructuring; Fis: Fiscal Measures; Guid: Guidelines; Incent: Incentivization; Leg: Legislation; Mod: Modeling; PA: Physical Activity; Per: Persuasion; Reg: Regulations; Res: Restricting; SBP: Systolic Blood Pressure; SPlan: Social Planning; SPro: Service Provision; Tra: Training; WHT: Wearable Health Technology.

Availability of Data and Material

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Authors’ contributions

Study conception and design: Tung, C.Y.

Data collection: Jian, J.W.

Data analysis and interpretation: Chang, C.C.

Drafting of the article: Wu, C.T.

Critical revision of the article: Chang, C.C.

Retouching the article: Du,Y.U.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by research grant from the Ministry of Science and Technology Taiwan R.O.C. (105-2511-S-003-024).