Abby C. King

Research Interests

My interests include the applications of social cognitive theory and similar behavioral and ecological approaches to achieve large scale change in disease prevention and health promotion areas of relevance to adults, especially women, and mid-life and older adults; moving interventions that have proven effective in the laboratory to field settings; influences of the built and social environments on health behaviors and outcomes, including person-environment interactions; and long term maintenance to hygienic regimens, including physical activity, dietary change, and stress reduction.

In mid-life and older populations, I am interested in the study of physical activity as a link to other health-promoting behaviors; and the relationship of physical activity and other health-related behaviors to day-to-day functioning, stress and coping, sleep quality,and psychological well being, particularly in chronically stressed populations (e.g., family caregivers).

In pursuing the development of behavioral interventions for chronic disease prevention with broad applicability to the population at large, I have investigated channels of delivery (e.g., mediated approaches and interactive technologies) that do not require ongoing face-to-face contact. We have found that mediated interventions can provide a useful alternative to more intensive face-to-face approaches to health behavior change and, in some cases, such as in the physical activity field, may actually produce better long term (i.e., up to two years) adherence than class- or group-based approaches.