Common forms of work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) such as neck, shoulder and backaches have become prevalent health issues during COVID-19, as more people adopt poor postural habits while working from home.
We Got Your Back is Singapore’s first-ever digital health campaign encouraging the adoption of good postural habits to prevent the onset of WMSDs amongst desk-bound working adults aged 25 to 40. As good postural habits, such as adhering to proper posture guidelines and taking adequate stretch breaks, can counter the problem, the campaign pushed out instructional and motivational content on these recommendations.
The campaign adopted a phase-by-phase content strategy where the target audience was first exposed to knowledge-focused content about good postural habits, like the Stretch At The Desk (Lower Back Stretches and Back Stretches) and The Wokestation series (Part 1 and Part 2). Next, people were encouraged to adopt good postural habits with content such as Posture Power-Up! and #SaveOurSpines edutainment series. The campaign then ended off with a Posture Pack distribution, which was part of the positive reinforcement strategy to ensure the sustainability of the campaign messaging even after it concluded.
Watch the video below and attempt some of the stretches.
The Highlights
Breaking down information into bite-sized pieces.
We Got Your Back utilised a motivational approach to effectively encourage the adoption of good postural habits. Previous initiatives to encourage the adoption of good postural habits were mostly a series of articles across broadsheets to educate people on how to sit properly at the work desk. However, the articles were mainly informative and do not offer visualisation of how to properly adopt good postural habits. Knowledge alone is often not sufficient to lead to a behavioural change as well, resulting in a need for a motivational campaign to better promote behavioural change.
To improve on these previous initiatives, the campaign posted bite-sized content on social media for better visualisation. These included tips and other motivational messages to encourage the adoption of proper posture among deskbound workers.
Informative #SaveOurSpines video series.
To connect with the public further, the campaign also released the #SaveOurSpines video series. It featured six individuals, who attempted a postural challenge for three days after learning the importance of good postural habits. After one week, the six individuals reflected on how the stretches and their newfound awareness of their postural habits helped them to minimise the frequency of body aches, and that learning about the consequences of poor postural habits motivated them to make a positive change in their lifestyles.
The video series enabled viewers to watch and observe their six fellow desk-bound workers demonstrating how to improve postural habits. It also motivated viewers in their belief that if other desk-bound workers can improve their postural habits, they can do it too.
Posture Power-Up! E-booklet Challenge and Posture Progress Quiz.
Finally, We Got Your Back hosted the Posture Power-Up! E-booklet Challenge and Posture Progress Quiz. The three e-booklets were designed to have content catered to participants in the different stages of postural habits. Participants had to attempt the Posture Progress Quiz to determine their current postural habits stage, from which they will know which e-booklet to attempt. The programme also allows personalisation of the challenge, where participants can set their own goals and work towards them, at a comfortable pace.
Meeting and exceeding campaign objectives.
The campaign has boosted the actual adoption of good postural habits by 10%, which exceeded its campaign objective of 5%. The motivational content also helped the campaign’s target audience improve their self-efficacy levels, which increased by 12% after it ended.
In addition, the campaign was covered in the media by 8world, Youthopia and Justsaying.Asia.
The Memories
Reflection #1 – The Challenges
Issues with social media advertising.
The campaign’s ad on good posture was said to have violated Facebook’s ad policies and was rejected, which was not the case. The team’s attempts to justify the case with Facebook and Instagram were not successful.
To minimise the impact, the team switched to using a personal ad account to continue pushing out the approved e-reminder ad and other boosted content. As for Instagram, there was no option to utilise personal ad accounts and hence, all paid content could only be published from the Facebook account, lessening some of the advertisement’s reach.
Unable to do a panel study due to PDPA.
The campaign team was unable to conduct a panel study due to the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) regulations, where it restricts the data collection of respondents. It was also difficult to conduct surveys using simple random sampling methods, given the limited resources and social distancing measures in place. Hence, the team made use of convenience and snowball sampling to collect responses.
Did not manage to hit certain objectives.
The campaign’s initial goal was to hit a 20% increase for positive outcome expectancies, but it was unsuccessful.
As individuals still have a common perception that there is too much to be done to adopt good postural habits, it may have resulted in weaker performance for positive outcome expectations.
Reflection #2 – The Takeaways
Increased self-efficacy and behavioural adoption of the public.
Despite not meeting the campaign’s goal for positive outcome expectancies, the campaign still performed well for the self-efficacy and behavioural adoption objectives.
The team believes the success for self-efficacy might have stemmed from the instructional video series, with which the audience could easily follow and adopt good postural habits with. The higher self-efficacy level has also encouraged the adoption of good postural habits.
The campaign also emphasised starting small with step-by-step recommendations in adopting good postural habits, which was less overwhelming and hence more persuasive in inciting behavioural change.
Sharing resources with partner organisations.
The campaign’s collaterals and resources were shared with partnering organisation Ng Teng Fong General Hospital (NTFGH). They are currently showcasing the videos that the campaign team has produced, such as the Stretch At The Desk and Workstation series, on their hospital-wide TVs, so that their employees, visitors, and patients can benefit from the content, learning about seated stretches and ergonomic set-ups.
Additionally, the team also proposed for NTFGH to add the curated Action Manual into their repertoire for future printing and dissemination, as the team believes this visual aid can help with raising knowledge and self-efficacy of good postural habits.
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