Examining the use of evidence-based and social media supported tools in freely accessible physical activity intervention websites

Corneel Vandelanotte, Morwenna Kirwan, Amanda Rebar, Stephanie Alley, Camille Short, Luke Fallon, Gavin Buzza, Stephanie Schoeppe, Carol Maher, Mitch J Duncan

It has been shown that physical activity is more likely to increase if web-based interventions apply evidence-based components (e.g. self-monitoring) and incorporate interactive social media applications (e.g. social networking), but it is unclear to what extent these are being utilized in the publicly available web-based physical activity interventions. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether freely accessible websites delivering physical activity interventions use evidence-based behavior change techniques and provide social media applications.