Each one of our courses focuses on a specific behavior or condition that is harmful to health. Typically, there are quantifiable metrics that can show trends in improving or declining health related to the behavior or condition.
Selfhelpworks offers users five biometric trackers that record and compile their various readings over time and generate reports filtered by relevant categorizations.
The biometric trackers are easily located on a simple "Tools" drop-down menu at the top of member and course homepages:
Weight Tracker: Users can record their body weight and view reports that reveal trends in weight gain or loss. This is probably most applicable to users in the LivingLean (food), LivingFit (exercise), and LivingHealthy (nutrition) courses.
Blood Glucose Tracker: Regularly checking and recording blood glucose levels is most important for users in the LivingWell course (diabetes management).
When entering a blood glucose reading, users also add context by noting when the reading was taken in regards to meals (after or before a meal, or during a period of fasting).
Reports are then filtered by date range and relation to meals, times of day, and snacking habits.
Blood Pressure Tracker: Users can record their blood pressure and the time of day the readings were taken: first rise, morning, evening, and before and after exercise. This extra context can expose patterns in higher and lower readings, establish a baseline reading for accuracy, and alert the user to when they are vulnerable to having spikes in blood pressure.
This tracker potentially applies to users of all courses, but is particularly important for participants of the diabetes management course, LivingWell.
Cholesterol Tracker: Users can record their cholesterol levels for four fields: HDL, LDL, Triglycerides, and Total Cholesterol. The reports present each field as a specific color. Users are not required to fill in data for all fields (some people, for example, are primarily interested in boosting their HDL levels and may only want to track that regularly).
Cholesterol levels can be affected by any of the behaviors that our courses focus on and are a particularly important element of diabetes management.
A1C Tracker: A1C is a measurement of average blood sugar readings over the previous two to three months; it provides a general overview of how successful diabetes management has been in that time span.
This tracker is most applicable to participants in the LivingWell course (diabetes management) but may also be of interest to any user who is concerned with developing diabetes. A user who sees a gradual decline in A1C is having success in their diabetes management.
WHAT THE TRACKERS MEAN FOR USERS:
One of the most important roles these trackers play within our solution is providing users insight into how certain behaviors, situations, and times of day can impact their readings (no matter the category). When users begin to understand how certain situations may affect their readings, they can hone their strategies and daily routines to improve their readings and health.
The trackers can also boost motivation. The visual nature of a report that shows a gradual improvement can validate a user's efforts and provide a sense of accomplishment that keeps them committed to their health and well-being.