The shift to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic has adversely affected the physical activity levels of office and desk workers. Previous studies have shown that remote workers are generally less active and more sedentary than office workers, which increases their health risks. However, researchers noted that few countermeasures exist for promoting physical activity among remote workers.

To address this issue, the University of Tsukuba’s research team conducted a pilot open-label randomized controlled trial with 52 remote workers and equally divided them into intervention and control groups using a completely randomized design. The work is published in the Journal of Occupational Health.

The intervention group received an 8-week multicomponent physical activity promotion program delivered remotely. This program included the following items:

• Individual strategies: Lectures, printed materials, goal setting, feedback, and posters.
• Sociocultural strategies: Team-building activities and fostering a supportive environment.
• Organizational strategies: Encouraging messages from executives.

The control group received minimal intervention consisting solely of posters.

The researchers analyzed the data and found no significant difference in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity between the intervention and control groups over eight weeks. However, notable increases in various physical activity domains were observed within the intervention group, including:

• Light physical activity notably increased by 14 min/day from baseline.
• Moderate-to-vigorous physical activity during the working day increased significantly by 9.4 min/day from baseline.
• The number of steps increased considerably by 984 steps per working day.

The number of steps in the control group, which only received posters, also considerably increased by 895 steps per working day.

These results suggest the feasibility of a multicomponent physical activity promotion program for remote workers. The findings of this study can guide the creation of action plans to encourage physical activity among remote workers in Japan.