Grant: Alliance Grants

With the technological development and increasing ubiquitous use of computers, the amount of time people in developed economies spend in sedentary workplaces has increased dramatically (Matthews et al., 2008). Sedentary behavior is characterized by an energy expenditure =1.5 metabolic equivalents (METs) while awake (Tremblay et al., 2017), and has been associated with health risks including increased cardiovascular-specific and overall mortality (Young Deborah Rohm et al., 2016). Effects of prolonged sitting have been associated with metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, Venous thrombosis, Lower Back pain and Muscle fatigue (Young Deborah Rohm et al., 2016). A committee of experts has suggested that at least 25% and as much as 50% of the work day should be spent standing with those periods being spaced over the workday, based on epidemiological evidence (Buckley et al., 2015). When considering use of sit-stand desks, the amount of standing which is most beneficial and number of sit-stand changes has been understudied (Chambers et al., 2019). Research in this field continues (Bao & Lin, 2018; Black et al., 2015, 2019) with a need to ensure such studies are applicable users in their regular work environment. One of the challenges is to motivate people to recognize the need to change their posture before discomfort occurs. Reminders may be presented on a computer screen are helpful (Barbieri et al., 2017; Sharma et al., 2019) but can be ignored. Gamification of these reminders may be increase user motivation and be more effective at making users enjoy the most beneficial frequent postural changes. This project will study the role of a gamified regular postural changes between sitting and standing degree of changes and improvements in employee well-being and performance when using a gamified Auto-Elevate feature created by Ergonomyx for use with various sit-stand height adjustable workstations.