Take a message – and take the stairs : Getting to the heart of healthy exercise at work

Purpose Worksites have been targeted as an important setting for physical activity interventions. A recent emphasis for health promoters is the use of point-of-choice interventions to encourage stair climbing at work. The purpose of this paper is to explore campaigns to increase stair climbing at work. Design/methodology/approach Focus groups were structured around three messages and four prompts and sought to explore the motivational power of the resources, identify factors contributing to their effectiveness and provide recommendations to improve and optimize content. Benefits and barriers to stair climbing at work were also explored. Findings Health awareness, motivation, social norms and time management influence stair climbing at work. Critically, factors associated with the worksite itself can also bias choice independently of any intervention. Results suggest that messages targeting heart health have the greatest impact on reported propensity to climb the stairs at work. Messages targeting rate of respiration for fitness, however, may have a negative effect, given that most people want to avoid getting out of breath at work. Originality/value Qualitative research is essential for developing and refining the design detail of point-of-choice interventions and tailoring their components to address individuals’ needs in different settings, but there is little evidence of this in practice.