Wednesday, 1 February 2017

Applied Behavior Analysis in Office Settings

There is a large population of employees in the United States (and elsewhere) who spend large amounts of time sitting at their desk for their employment. This can certainly lead to various health issues, obesity, low energy, variable mood, and so on.

Applied behavior analysis has begun to address this issue of prolonged sitting in the workplace.

Green, Sigurdson, and Wilder (2016) completed a research study to increase standing and walking (and reducing prolonged sitting). They provided interventions that included education as well as a treatment package. The authors state that the information alone was not as effective as the treatment package which included a tactile prompt, feedback, and goal setting.

This is a great study which addresses a very important issue for our society. Although the corporate workplace and office settings provide value to our society in certain ways, the nature of the positions can have detrimental effects on the individual employees. Since applied behavior analysis is the science of human behavior, using ABA is an excellent strategy to improve the health behaviors in today’s workplace.

Further research recommendations in regards to office setting employees include improving healthy eating, increasing physical activity (similar to the study described), improving focus and productivity, as well as identifying ways that the office setting in general can promote more positive health behaviors in employees from an organizational behavior management perspective.

See the following reference for more information about the study mentioned in this post:

Reference: Green, Sigurdson, & Wilder (2016). Decreasing bouts of prolonged sitting among office workers. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 49(3).

Image credit: highwaystarz via Fotalia



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