Mindful Climate Action: Improving Health While Reducing Carbon Footprint

Health Behavior Clinical Trial

Official title: Mindful Climate Action: Improving Health While Reducing Carbon Footprint: A Pilot Study

Status Completed

Clinical Trial Summary

To work with community partners to pilot test a mindfulness-based behavioral program aimed at: (a) enhancement of health and well-being, and (b) reduction in carbon footprint; (2) to develop, implement, and refine methods for assessing carbon footprint at the individual level; and (3) to work with pilot participants and community partners to carry out a proof-of-concept research study to assess impact on health, well-being, and carbon footprint.

Clinical Trial Description

This Pilot Study will be conducted to allow us to evaluate and test the various study processes, including: consent/enrollment, run-in-trial monitoring, measurement tools, outcome assessment, educational materials, and especially the mindfulness-based climate action trainings. The pilot study does not include a control group, and data will not be used for efficacy outcome analysis. The investigators anticipate doing two pilot cohorts of roughly 16 persons/group. The pilot cohorts will not be simultaneous.

Participants will meet for 2½ hour sessions, once per week for eight weeks. An additional 6-hour retreat will be scheduled over a weekend towards the end of the program. Participants will receive about 26 hours of contact time. Their daily home practice will be guided by audio recordings (25 to 45 minutes) that lead them through their formal meditation practice of the body scan, sitting meditations, and gentle yoga. Participants will be asked to practice for 5 or 6 days per week at home, using these audio recordings or on their own. They will also be asked to select a daily practice time that works best for them, perhaps early morning, after work, or later in the evening. Participants will record what they practice and for how long either on paper log sheets or using a web-based data form.

Climate change, energy, and carbon footprint knowledge will be assessed by a college intro-level test (pre- and post-training). Electrical and gas use will be assessed directly by inspecting Madison Gas and Electric (MG&E) utility records. Miles driven in automobile will be assessed by self-report, verified with odometer readings of primary vehicle done by study staff. Active transportation and motor vehicle travel will be measured using a free, smart phone app called MOVES. In order to extract the activity data from the user's phone, each participant will download another free app called TRAQS CSV Exporter (https://labs.traqs.me/moves/) which will export data once monthly over the course of the year. Individual movement/transportation activity data obtained from this app will provide the study team with data allowing an in-depth and fine-grained understanding of transportation behaviors across the study time period.

Dietary composition will be assessed by validated dietary recall, with proportion of dietary calories from animal versus plant sources as the primary assessment. Composite carbon footprints will be calculated. In addition to carbon footprint, the investigators will be assessing health co-benefits, including several domains of mental and physical health (validated self-report measures) and active transport assessed using Actigraph accelerometers.

Participants will be asked to provide feedback through interviews regarding the curriculum. ;

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Health Behavior

• NCT number: NCT03007901
• Study type: Interventional
• Source: University of Wisconsin, Madison
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: January 2017
• Completion date: September 15, 2017