Maintaining a healthy lifestyle, including healthy eating and regular physical activity, plays an important role in the health of Canadians and in the prevention of chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes.
The Government of Canada is advancing innovative partnerships to provide diabetes prevention information and tools to adults and children over the age of 10 living in rural and remote regions of Ontario, Québec, British Columbia and the Northwest Territories.
The Lifestyle Prescriptions and Supports to Reduce the Risk of Diabetes in Rural and Remote Communities is a partnership with the Lawson Health Research Institute (Lawson), Dietitians of Canada, the HealtheSteps Research Team (which includes 10 academic institutions), Sykes Assistance Services, and Dairy Farmers of Canada.
The goal of this project is to promote healthy lifestyles and behaviour change by combining hands-on exercise and nutrition program support with innovative uses of technology. Activities include:
- training coaches to provide in-person, telephone and online support using the HealtheSteps program, which supports prescribing exercise programs and healthy eating to prevent diabetes and other chronic diseases;
- creating, implementing and evaluating two mobile applications (apps) focused on exercise and nutrition (HealtheSteps and eaTracker) for use on smartphones; and
- evaluating the program by comparing the health behaviors of participants with access to the HealtheSteps program.
The Public Health Agency of Canada will invest $1,146,840 between 2013-2015, to fund this project.
