Persuasive Technology - Health Behavior Change

Health Behavior Change

While persuasive technologies are found in many domains, considerable recent attention has focused on behavior change in health domains. Digital health coaching is the utilization of computers as persuasive technology to augment the personal care delivered to patients, and is used in numerous medical settings (Elton 2007).

Numerous scientific studies show that online health behaviour change interventions can influence users' behaviours. Moreover, the most effective interventions are modelled on health coaching, where users are asked to set goals, educated about the consequences of their behaviour, then encouraged to track their progress toward their goals. Sophisticated systems even adapt to users who relapse by helping them get back on the bandwagon (Cugelman et al. 2011).

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Famous quotes containing the words health, behavior and/or change:

    It is always singular, but encouraging, to meet with common sense in very old books, as the Heetopades of Veeshnoo Sarma; a playful wisdom which has eyes behind as well as before, and oversees itself. It asserts their health and independence of the experience of later times. This pledge of sanity cannot be spared in a book, that it sometimes pleasantly reflect upon itself.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    The purpose of polite behavior is never virtuous. Deceit, surrender, and concealment: these are not virtues. The goal of the mannerly is comfort, per se.
    June Jordan (b. 1939)

    Men are but children of a larger growth,
    Our appetites as apt to change as theirs,
    And full as craving too, and full as vain.
    John Dryden (1631–1700)