Success Stories

The Centre for Disease Control's Atlanta, Georgia's Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity is conducting an ongoing study to assess if making stairwells visually appealing with art and signs motivates employees to use them. A three-staged passive intervention was implemented that included painting, carpeting, and installing framed artwork and motivational signage. Using infrared beams to track the number of users, results showed a 14.8% increase after all three interventions were in place. A year after the intervention, stairwell use was still 9.4% above baseline. These data suggest that physical improvements and motivational signage can increase physical activity among building occupants. Next phase for the intervention? Music.

For more information contact:
Nicole Kerr
Centres for Disease Control
770-488-5577

National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland

Encouraging employees to take the stairs is becoming a popular strategy for worksite wellness and fitness programs, including the National Institute of Health in Maryland, where signs are posted near elevators throughout the campus urging people to climb steps instead.

"NIH is full of very busy people, and we're trying to remind them that little bits of exercise can be incorporated into even the busiest day," says Susanne Strickland, who helped launch NIH's "take the stairs" campaign in 1998 when she was director of the institutes' worksite health promotion program.

A health-promotion committee developed a variety of whimsical slogans for the signs, including: "Why WEIGHT for an elevator: Take steps to save time and burn calories." "Burn some stress; take the stairs." "Bone up to good health; climb the stairs."