Purpose: To outline the development, implementation, and evaluation of a multistrategy intervention to promote active transportation, on a large university campus.
Design: Single group pilot study.
Setting: A large university in the Northeastern United States.
Participants: University students (n = 563), faculty and staff (employees, n = 999) were included in the study.
Intervention: The Active Lions campaign aimed to increase active transportation to campus for all students and employees. The campaign targeted active transport participation through the development of a smartphone application and the implementation of supporting social marketing and social media components.
Measures: Component-specific measures included app user statistics, social media engagement, and reach of social marketing strategies. Overall evaluation included cross-sectional online surveys preintervention and postintervention of student and employee travel patterns and campaign awareness.
Analysis: Number of active trips to campus were summed, and the percentage of trips as active was calculated. T tests compared the differences in outcomes from preintervention to postintervention.
Results: Students had a higher percentage of active trips postintervention (64.2%) than preintervention (49.2%; t = 3.32, P = .001), although there were no differences for employees (7.9% and 8.91%). Greater awareness of Active Lions was associated with greater active travel.
Conclusion: This multistrategy approach to increase active transportation on a college campus provided insight on the process of developing and implementing a campaign with the potential for impacting health behaviors among campus members.
Keywords: active travel; intervention; physical activity; smartphone; social media; university campus.