TY - JOUR
T1 - Effect of Promotional Initiatives on Visits to a Dedicated Website for Physical Activity and Non-Communicable Disease in Luxembourg
T2 - An Event Study
AU - Lion, Alexis
AU - Thornton, Jane S.
AU - Vaillant, Michel
AU - Pertuy, Juliette
AU - Besenius, Eric
AU - Hardy, Cyrille
AU - Delagardelle, Charles
AU - Seil, Romain
AU - Urhausen, Axel
AU - Theisen, Daniel
N1 - Funding Information:
The Sport-Sant? project was supported by the Oeuvre Nationale de Secours Grande-Duchesse Charlotte. The authors are grateful to the persons in charge of the different organizations offering promotion to Sport-Sant? and for their help to collect the characteristics of the initiatives. The authors are also grateful to Dr. Florian L?on (Centre for Research in Economics and Management, University of Luxembourg) for his help to conduct this study.
Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright © 2017 Lion, Thornton, Vaillant, Pertuy, Besenius, Hardy, Delagardelle, Seil, Urhausen and Theisen.
PY - 2017/5/29
Y1 - 2017/5/29
N2 - The Sport-Santé project and its website (www.sport-sante.lu) promote physical activity for individuals with non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in Luxembourg. Our purpose was to perform an event study analysis to evaluate the effects of communication and promotional initiatives on the number of visits to the Sport-Santé website. Between September 2015 and May 2016, the Sport-Santé website was promoted during different initiatives, including participation in health-related events or publication of articles in local journals. The daily number of visits to www.sport-sante.lu website (i.e., our outcome) was recorded using Google Analytics and compared to a counterfactual collected with its benchmarking tool. The counterfactual was defined as the daily number of visits to websites in the same field. A model was created to evaluate the relationship between the number of visits to www.sport-sante.lu website and the number of visits to similar websites during a control period with no promotional initiatives (from July 2015 to September 2015). The effect of promotional initiatives was subsequently tested, by comparing the actual number of visits to our website (up to 2 days after each event) with the theoretical number of visits predicted by the model. Twenty-two initiatives were identified, of which 11 were participations at major health-related events and 11 publications of popular science articles. Of these 22 initiatives, the event study identified 2 popular science articles and 1 interactive workshop that significantly increased the daily number of visits to the www.sport-sante.lu website. One of the two articles was published on the day before the workshop was held, which did not allow us to distinguish its specific impact. The second article was published in the main national newspaper. This is the first time to our knowledge that an event study analysis has been used to evaluate the impact of promotional initiatives on the number of visits to a dedicated website for physical activity and NCDs. Our results indicate that some initiatives can aid in the number of visits, but in general their impact is limited. To observe an increased rate of participation in physical activity, additional promotional and evaluative strategies should be explored.
AB - The Sport-Santé project and its website (www.sport-sante.lu) promote physical activity for individuals with non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in Luxembourg. Our purpose was to perform an event study analysis to evaluate the effects of communication and promotional initiatives on the number of visits to the Sport-Santé website. Between September 2015 and May 2016, the Sport-Santé website was promoted during different initiatives, including participation in health-related events or publication of articles in local journals. The daily number of visits to www.sport-sante.lu website (i.e., our outcome) was recorded using Google Analytics and compared to a counterfactual collected with its benchmarking tool. The counterfactual was defined as the daily number of visits to websites in the same field. A model was created to evaluate the relationship between the number of visits to www.sport-sante.lu website and the number of visits to similar websites during a control period with no promotional initiatives (from July 2015 to September 2015). The effect of promotional initiatives was subsequently tested, by comparing the actual number of visits to our website (up to 2 days after each event) with the theoretical number of visits predicted by the model. Twenty-two initiatives were identified, of which 11 were participations at major health-related events and 11 publications of popular science articles. Of these 22 initiatives, the event study identified 2 popular science articles and 1 interactive workshop that significantly increased the daily number of visits to the www.sport-sante.lu website. One of the two articles was published on the day before the workshop was held, which did not allow us to distinguish its specific impact. The second article was published in the main national newspaper. This is the first time to our knowledge that an event study analysis has been used to evaluate the impact of promotional initiatives on the number of visits to a dedicated website for physical activity and NCDs. Our results indicate that some initiatives can aid in the number of visits, but in general their impact is limited. To observe an increased rate of participation in physical activity, additional promotional and evaluative strategies should be explored.
KW - Internet
KW - event study
KW - health promotion
KW - non-communicable diseases
KW - sport
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85073875241&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28611975
U2 - 10.3389/fpubh.2017.00114
DO - 10.3389/fpubh.2017.00114
M3 - Article
C2 - 28611975
AN - SCOPUS:85073875241
SN - 2296-2565
VL - 5
JO - Frontiers in Public Health
JF - Frontiers in Public Health
M1 - 114
ER -