# Multilevel Physical Activity Intervention for Low Income Public Housing Residents

> **NIH NIH R01** · BOSTON MEDICAL CENTER · 2022 · $684,878

## Abstract

Project Summary
Physical activity has been associated with several chronic disease markers for the past 25 years, and
countless studies have tested interventions to improve physical activity of sedentary populations. Most of these
intervention studies have attempted to improve physical activity behaviors by changing individual level drivers
of activity, like motivation, attitudes, and self-efficacy for being active. Unfortunately, these efforts to change
activity levels are often not sustained beyond the initial intervention period. One possible cause of this lack of
sustainability is that insufficient attention was paid to environmental factors that facilitate physical activity.
Thus, attention is shifting to more complex environmental and social contributions to physical activity, with the
aim of identifying multi-level strategies to better target interventions to groups that need help. Very few tests of
changing environment levels to increase physical activity exist in the literature. A focus on interventions at
environmental levels, as called for by recent reviews as well as reports from the Institute of Medicine, might
provide the long-term sustainable change that is needed to change physical activity in low-income populations.
This project seeks to test a new multi-level, multi-component package to increase moderate intensity physical
activity levels of people living in public housing developments. Our aims are to evaluate the effects of an
intervention package focused on the environment level to produce changes in moderate physical activity
among public housing residents. Furthermore, we will evaluate the added effects of an efficacy-tested
individual-level eHealth phone program to produce further changes in moderate intensity physical activity. The
design of this study is a prospective, cluster randomized controlled trial, with housing developments as the
units of randomization. In this four group, factorial, cluster randomized controlled trial, we will compare an
environmental intervention alone (E only), an individual intervention alone (I only), an environmental plus
individual intervention (E+I), all against a control group. Mediation and moderation of our intervention will be
assessed. Lastly, we will assess factors from the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research
domains to examine future implementation of a multi-level physical activity intervention among key informants in
public housing developments.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10412931
- **Project number:** 5R01MD015165-02
- **Recipient organization:** BOSTON MEDICAL CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** DEBORAH J. BOWEN
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $684,878
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-05-27 → 2026-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10412931

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10412931, Multilevel Physical Activity Intervention for Low Income Public Housing Residents (5R01MD015165-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10412931. Licensed CC0.

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