Key Information

The following is a short summary of this study to help you decide whether or not to be a part of this study. More detailed information is listed later on in this form.

Why am I being invited to take part in a research study?

We have invited you to take part in this research study because you are an adult interested in investing in your physical and mental health.

What should I know about a research study?

• Study website will have details of this research available for you to review.
• Whether or not you take part is up to you.
• Your participation is completely voluntary.
• You can choose not to take part.
• You can agree to take part and later change your mind.
• Your decision will not be held against you.
• You can ask all the questions you want before you decide.

Why is this research being done?

By conducting this study, we intend to determine what is the most effective way of facilitating health and wellness behavioral changes that could help optimize physical and mental health of working adults.

How long will the research last and what will I need to do?

We expect that you will be in this research study for 2 weeks. However, the total time commitment required from you over this period is about 30 minutes. You will watch a 15-minute webinar that will introduce simple and effective health behavior changes that research shows can have a notable impact on physical and mental health. Following the webinar, you will be given a short task aimed at helping you implement the intended behavioral changes. It should take 5 minutes to complete this assignment. Finally, you will be asked to answer some basic demographics questions and to complete two questionnaires, which should take less than 5 minutes.

Two weeks later, you will receive a reminder email asking you to answer a few more questions. This should take less than 5 minutes of your time.

Is there any way being in this study could be bad for me?

We don’t believe there are any risks from participating in this research.

Will being in this study help me in any way?

Possible benefits include increased awareness about how lifestyle behaviors may impact one’s physical and mental health, as well as understanding of how these could be changed to enhance one’s wellbeing. The study findings, once made available, may offer actionable, quick and easy to implement tools that can help achieve behavioral changes in health and wellness space. 

Detailed Information

What is the purpose of this research?

Some of the simplest things we can do to improve our physical and mental health, and to support our immune system’s ability to respond to challenges are related to such lifestyle behaviors as sleep, diet, hydration, stress management, and physical activity. However, many of these daily health behavior are habitual and, consequently, behavior changes often involve bad habits we want to break and/or good habits we want to cultivate.

While simple diet and lifestyle habits can make a big difference to one’s health, adjusting the way we eat, how we exercise, the way we go to bed at night etc. is often difficult. And it is not just because of the lack of information or not knowing why it is important, but because it means changing deeply ingrained habits that we’ve built over the course of years or even a lifetime. While information is an important part of the change process, to get people to successfully implement changes and new habits it needs to be combined with science-backed methods that have been shown to lead to lasting behavioral changes. Knowledge about how habits form in the first place based on health psychology research can offer such tools and techniques.

The purpose of this study is not to only provide you with evidence-based information on simple lifestyle and diet changes you can make to support one’s health and well-being, but also to assess the effectiveness of a short and simple mechanism aimed at enhancing successful implementation of these behavioral changes.

How long will I take part in this research?

The webinar, the assignment and initial questionnaires would take less than 30 minutes of your time. Two weeks later, you will be asked to answer a few more questions which should take less than 5 minutes of your time.

What can I expect if I take part in this research?

• If you are interested in taking part in the study, you will be asked to register your interest for one of 4 available webinar slots.
• On the day of the webinar, you will receive an email with the website address where you can access the webinar.
• Upon entering this website, you will be asked to register with your email address
• You will then be able to sign a Consent Form
• Next you will watch the 15-minute webinar explaining evidence of simple diet and lifestyle behavioral changes you can make to help enhance your wellbeing
• At the end of the webinar you will be asked to choose a personally relevant behavior which you don’t currently do and want to implement in your life and will then be given details of a short task to help you implement these changes. The task will require you to write a few things down in response to questions posed. This should take 5 minutes.
• Once you have completed this assignment, you will be asked to answer a few questions by ticking the most appropriate response in the list provided. This should take just a few minutes of your time.
• Two weeks later, you will receive another email asking you to return to the website (link will be included), where you will be asked to log in and complete the final set of questions. This should take less than 5 minutes of your time
• If you have completed all the above steps, as a thank you for your time, study findings and information on actionable tools that can help one change their daily habits will be made available to you. You will be notified via an email once these are available.

What happens if I say yes, but I change my mind later?

You can leave the research at any time; it will not be held against you.

If you choose to withdraw from the study before completion of the final questionnaires, you can contact the researcher and ask for any data collected prior to that point to be deleted. Otherwise, the data will be treated as per procedure described in the section below.

If I take part in this research, how will my privacy be protected? What happens to the information you collect?

Efforts will be made to limit the use and disclosure of your Personal Information to people who have a need to review this information. We cannot promise complete secrecy.

It is our intention to keep all of your responses confidential. To respect participants’ confidentiality, we will ensure that no one other than members of the research team will see the answers. Participants will be coded with study ID numbers, which will then be used in the data analysis process. Participants will not be identifiable in any ensuing reports or publications.

You will be asked for your email address to register for the study and create study website log in details. Your email address will only be used to send an email with link to the webinar for the slot you registered for and a reminder email to complete the study follow up questions two weeks later. Finally, an email will be sent to those who completed all the questionnaires once the study results are made available. Email addresses will be downloaded to a separate password-protected file on researcher’s password protected computer. Emails will be deleted as soon as the final email about study findings availability has been sent.

No other personally identifying information will be collected, except your name on this consent form, which will be kept in an electronic form on a password protected account. At the conclusion of this research study, the material containing your name will be destroyed.

Who can I talk to?

If you have questions, concerns, or complaints, or think the research has hurt you, talk to the research team:

• Kateryna Demekhina, the researcher for this study, can be reached via the phone +852 9223 2513 and email katia@supercharged.health
• Professor Richard J. McNally, the Harvard University faculty supervisor for the study, can be reached at the Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, and via phone +1 (617) 495-3853, and e-mail rjm@harvard.edu.

This research has been reviewed and approved by the Harvard University Area Institutional Review Board (“IRB”). You may talk to them at (617) 496-2847 or cuhs@harvard.edu if:

• Your questions, concerns, or complaints are not being answered by the research team.
• You cannot reach the research team.
• You want to talk to someone besides the research team.
• You have questions about your rights as a research subject.
• You want to get information or provide input about this research.