UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — David E. Conroy, Penn State professor of kinesiology, human development and family studies and public health sciences, will present the 2023 Pattishall Research Lecture, “Can a Smart Device Help You Improve Your Health? Precision Behavioral Interventions to Improve Health Behaviors.”
The lecture, sponsored by the College of Health and Human Development, will be presented on Wednesday, March 29, at 3:30 p.m. in the Edna Bennett Pierce Living Center (110 Henderson Building) and via Zoom Webinar. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Many ordinary behaviors in daily life, including levels of physical activity and water intake, can have a large impact on health outcomes. For some people, these behaviors come naturally, but others struggle to prioritize these habits due to busy lives and competing needs.
According to Conroy, one solution to help people prioritize healthy behaviors is to deliver information or prompts through smart devices based on each person’s individual needs.
Conroy’s work looks at the use of mobile and wearable technology in monitoring these behaviors and delivering interventions in real-time. For people looking to increase physical activity, wearable technology takes into consideration recent activity, the day of the week, and location-specific weather conditions to deliver personalized messages at times that are most likely to increase physical activity, said Conroy. For people who would like to increase their water intake, a combination of mobile app, smartwatch, and integrated, smart water bottle tracks drinking levels and delivers helpful reminders during the day.
“These digital tools illustrate the potential for drawing on existing patterns of behavior and contextual information to deliver interventions when people need them the most,” Conroy said. “They represent one step toward realizing a vision of society where each person gets the personalized support they need to improve and maintain their health through physical activity and nutrition.”
The Pattishall Research Lecture is delivered each year by the most recent recipient of the Pattishall Outstanding Research Achievement Award, which honors a senior faculty member who has made outstanding research contributions to the field across a major portion of his or her career. The award was established by the late Evan Pattishall, who served as dean of the former College of Human Development, and his wife, Helen Pattishall.