{"doi":"10.2196/68006","title":"Engagement of African American Women With Fitness Trackers and Mobile Technology for Shared Physical Activity Goals: Mixed Methods Study","abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title>\n                  <jats:sec sec-type=\"background\">\n                    <jats:title>Background</jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>While there is growing evidence demonstrating the usefulness of integrating social features within mobile health approaches, little research has explored how African American women use mobile platforms to facilitate physical activity within the context of a group-based physical activity intervention.</jats:p>\n                  </jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec sec-type=\"objective\">\n                    <jats:title>Objective</jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>The primary aim of this study was to qualitatively describe how African American women used private group messaging boards on the Fitbit mobile app (eg, the type of social and motivational strategies) during a 10-week group-based physical activity intervention. The secondary aim of this study was to quantitatively test whether greater engagement on the Fitbit mobile app (number of posts per week) was associated with greater daily physical activity (ie, steps and total minutes of physical activity) across 10 weeks.</jats:p>\n                  </jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec sec-type=\"methods\">\n                    <jats:title>Methods</jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Data were collected from 54 African American women who participated in the Together Everyone Achieves More Physical Activity trial (mean age 51.57, SD 13.89 y). Participants completed weekly in-person group sessions, set group-based weekly physical activity goals, and used the Fitbit mobile app for ongoing group communication and support, including posting in a private group. This study used a QUAN-qual mixed methods design to describe how participants used the private group messaging boards on the Fitbit mobile app and to evaluate whether engagement on the Fitbit app was associated with greater physical activity (ie, steps and total minutes of physical activity) across the 10-week intervention.</jats:p>\n                  </jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec sec-type=\"results\">\n                    <jats:title>Results</jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>\n                      The mean number of posts per week ranged from 1.79 (SD 2.95) in week 1 to 1.11 (SD 2.49) in week 10, with a maximum of 5.06 (SD 7.62) posts in week 5. A thematic content analysis revealed that the private groups reflected numerous topics, including motivational strategies, cognitive strategies, group strategies, informal positive communication, and sharing pictures. The quantitative analyses revealed that participants who posted at least once per week engaged in more steps (\n                      <jats:italic>P</jats:italic>\n                      =.006) and total minutes of physical activity (\n                      <jats:italic>P</jats:italic>\n                      =.02).\n                    </jats:p>\n                  </jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec sec-type=\"conclusions\">\n                    <jats:title>Conclusions</jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Participants engaged in ongoing social support, positive communication, and vicarious learning through the Fitbit app, suggesting several important directions for future research, including potential interpersonal mechanisms and best practices for enhancing social support and physical activity among African American women.</jats:p>\n                  </jats:sec>","journal":"JMIR mHealth and uHealth","year":2025,"id":635513,"datarank":0.16479184330021646,"base_score":1.0986122886681096,"endowment":1.0986122886681096,"self_citation_contribution":0.16479184330021646,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.16479184330021646,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":2,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":null,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":false,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":null,"fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":660486,"name":"Timothy Simmons","orcid":"0000-0001-5741-4763","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1648820,"name":"Anika Nair","orcid":"0009-0000-9186-9198","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1320812,"name":"Lindsay Decker","orcid":"0009-0004-8099-4718","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":770608,"name":"Allison M. Sweeney","orcid":"0000-0001-6398-8042","position":0,"is_corresponding":false}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":{"has_enrichment":true,"resolved":true,"title":"Engagement of African American Women With Fitness Trackers and Mobile Technology for Shared Physical Activity Goals: Mixed Methods Study","abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title>\n                  <jats:sec sec-type=\"background\">\n                    <jats:title>Background</jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>While there is growing evidence demonstrating the usefulness of integrating social features within mobile health approaches, little research has explored how African American women use mobile platforms to facilitate physical activity within the context of a group-based physical activity intervention.</jats:p>\n                  </jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec sec-type=\"objective\">\n                    <jats:title>Objective</jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>The primary aim of this study was to qualitatively describe how African American women used private group messaging boards on the Fitbit mobile app (eg, the type of social and motivational strategies) during a 10-week group-based physical activity intervention. The secondary aim of this study was to quantitatively test whether greater engagement on the Fitbit mobile app (number of posts per week) was associated with greater daily physical activity (ie, steps and total minutes of physical activity) across 10 weeks.</jats:p>\n                  </jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec sec-type=\"methods\">\n                    <jats:title>Methods</jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Data were collected from 54 African American women who participated in the Together Everyone Achieves More Physical Activity trial (mean age 51.57, SD 13.89 y). Participants completed weekly in-person group sessions, set group-based weekly physical activity goals, and used the Fitbit mobile app for ongoing group communication and support, including posting in a private group. This study used a QUAN-qual mixed methods design to describe how participants used the private group messaging boards on the Fitbit mobile app and to evaluate whether engagement on the Fitbit app was associated with greater physical activity (ie, steps and total minutes of physical activity) across the 10-week intervention.</jats:p>\n                  </jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec sec-type=\"results\">\n                    <jats:title>Results</jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>\n                      The mean number of posts per week ranged from 1.79 (SD 2.95) in week 1 to 1.11 (SD 2.49) in week 10, with a maximum of 5.06 (SD 7.62) posts in week 5. A thematic content analysis revealed that the private groups reflected numerous topics, including motivational strategies, cognitive strategies, group strategies, informal positive communication, and sharing pictures. The quantitative analyses revealed that participants who posted at least once per week engaged in more steps (\n                      <jats:italic>P</jats:italic>\n                      =.006) and total minutes of physical activity (\n                      <jats:italic>P</jats:italic>\n                      =.02).\n                    </jats:p>\n                  </jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec sec-type=\"conclusions\">\n                    <jats:title>Conclusions</jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Participants engaged in ongoing social support, positive communication, and vicarious learning through the Fitbit app, suggesting several important directions for future research, including potential interpersonal mechanisms and best practices for enhancing social support and physical activity among African American women.</jats:p>\n                  </jats:sec>","is_dataset_classified":null,"base_score":1.0986122886681096,"endowment":1.0986122886681096,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"views":0,"has_version_chain":false,"is_dataset":false,"is_oa":false,"pmid":"41468532","pmcid":"PMC12752912","openalex_id":"https://openalex.org/W4416262429","authors":[],"funders":[{"funder_name":"NHLBI NIH HHS","grant_id":"R01 HL160618","title":null}],"total_grants":1,"fwci":1.768,"citation_percentile":0.86217949,"influential_citations":0,"citation_trend":[{"year":2026,"count":2}],"oa_status":"gold","license":"cc-by","oa_locations":[{"url":"https://doi.org/10.2196/68006","host_type":"journal"},{"url":"https://doi.org/10.2196/68006","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://mhealth.jmir.org/2025/1/e68006","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41468532","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://doaj.org/article/c0ff1bf993884f958dab34203a8f64af","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12752912/","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC12752912","host_type":"Europe_PMC"},{"url":"https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC12752912?pdf=render","host_type":"Europe_PMC"}],"fields_of_study":["Innovative Human-Technology Interaction","Physical Activity and Health","Mobile Health and mHealth Applications"],"mesh_terms":["Fitness Trackers","Adult","Aged","Black or African American","Female","Goals","Humans","Middle Aged","Motivation","Patient Participation","Exercise","Qualitative Research","Mobile Applications"],"keywords":["Activity tracker","African american","Physical activity","Interpersonal communication","mHealth","Social support","Mobile technology","Interpersonal relationship","Ethnically diverse","Physical Activity Intervention","African American Women","Mobile Health","Fitbit","Mobile App","Fitness Tracker","Multimethods Approach"],"sdg_mappings":[],"linked_datasets":[],"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"database_accessions":[{"name":"nct"}],"source":"live","citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-08-06T15:12:57.083486Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}