The Impact of Wearable Device Enabled Health Initiative on Physical Activity and Sleep

The Personal Health Management Study (PHMS) is an assessment of the effect of a voluntary employee-facing health initiative using a commercially-available wearable device implemented among 565 employees of Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. The results of the initiative on physical activity (measured as steps) and sleep is reported.

This was a 12-month, prospective, single-cohort intervention study using a wearable activity-measuring device tracking steps and sleep (entire study period) and a system of health-promoting incentives (first nine months of study period). The findings from the first nine study months are reported.

The mixed model repeated measures approach was used to analyze the data. There was no significant difference in steps between the first month (7915.6 mean steps per person per day) and the last month (7853.4 mean steps per person per day) of the intervention. However, there was a seasonal decline in steps during the intervention period from fall to winter, followed by an increase in steps from winter to spring. In contrast, sleep tended to increase steadily throughout the study period, and the number of hours slept during the last month (7.52 mean hours per person per day) of the intervention was significantly greater than the number of hours slept during the first month (7.16 mean hours per person per day).

The impact of the initiative on physical activity and sleep differed over the period of time studied. While physical activity did not change between the first and last month of the intervention, the number of hours slept per night increased significantly. Although seasonal changes and study-device habituation may explain the pattern of change in physical activity, further evaluation is required to clarify the reasons underlying the difference in the impact of the initiative on the dynamics of steps and sleep.