The University of California San Diego (UC San Diego) recently launched a stairwell campaign in an effort to increase physical activity among staff, faculty, and students. UC San Diego Healthy Campus Network (HCN) led the effort with support from Live Well @ Work in the Urey Hall building on campus. The campaign consists of ‘point of decision’ signs displayed near the elevator landing on all six floors in the building with various messages that communicate, “There’s The Stairs.” Additional marketing and promotion efforts included email communications, stress less signage in elevators, and multimedia displays in the building lobby. HCN students also conducted outreach events once a week outside of Urey Hall to promote and encourage stairwell use campus wide with promotional items such as water bottles, healthy snacks, Healthy Campus Network stickers, and educational information.
According to initial data results, there has been an increase in stair usage among staff, faculty, and students since the launch of the stairwell campaign on UC San Diego’s campus in April this year. Stairwell use was tracked daily over 39 weeks using a digital people counter and concluded in June. Preliminary data collection results indicate stairwell use rose on average, 26% percent since the campaign began.
The project is part of a University of California (UC) wide effort to foster a culture of health on each UC campus. The stairwell data collection across all UC campuses will contribute to the largest institutional-wide stairwell intervention study to date. The overall goal of the campaign is to demonstrate that ‘point of decision’ signs increase stairwell use and physical activity, consequently lowering building energy demands. UC San Diego Healthy Campus hopes that data discovered from the project will prompt UC San Diego to expand the scope of the campaign to buildings across campus.
For program funding information, please see Live Well @ Work Initiative.