A new grant to further enrich computer-tailored health education

Computer-tailored health education, i.e. using ICT to provide people with individually tailored feedback and advice to motivate and enable more healthy lifestyles, is a very promising health education technique (see Brug et al for an early overview of the evidence, Oenema et al for a firts study on web-based computer-tailoring, or Kroeze et al for a more recent systematic review). One of the critiques on this form of on-line health education is that it does not include the necessary social interaction to better realise lasting behavior changes. With the development and very fast dissemination of web-based social networks, the distribution of mobile internet, and ever faster and more powerful mobile devices, the possibilities to provide computer-tailored health education where and when it matters, based on objective measures of behavioral patterns, and linking this to social network features become apparant. We have just received notice that we will receive an important research grant, with Dr. Saskia te Velde as the main applicant, in the Partnership programma STW-NIHC-Philips Research“Healthy Lifestyle Solutions” to develop and test such further innovations in computer-tailored health education promoting physical activity among young adults.