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The majority of youth fail to get the recommended amount of physical activity (PA), and there is a precipitous decline in PA among children as they get older. Guided by self-determination theory and social cognitive theory, we designed an interactive, mixed reality PA intervention for 6-10-year-old children. Capitalizing on the features of consumer-grade interactive communication technologies, the intervention features a kiosk-based system that houses a virtual agent programmed to encourage children to set self-determined PA goals. This intervention aims to resolve many practical challenges in designing and administering a personalized, intrinsically motivated PA intervention for this age group. We pilot tested the feasibility of this kiosk across 6 weeks with n  = 42 child/parent dyads. The kiosk tracked and logged children's daily PA and engagement with the intervention without having to rely on human reporting, provided tailored evaluation and feedback whenever children requested it, informed parents about their child's PA progress, and employed a virtual agent (a dog) to offer social support to children. The virtual agent prompted users to set PA goals, and as children met these goals over time, their personalized dog became happier, more fit, and better at tricks. Each time a child engaged with the kiosk the system automatically sent a text message to his/her parent with details about the child's PA progress. The current study demonstrated the kiosk's feasibility in the field over 6 weeks, illustrating the potential of using interactive technologies as tools for disseminating self-sufficient, and truly self-determined health interventions for children at scale.

To assess the potential impact of oral rabies vaccination (ORV) on the occurrence of raccoon rabies in the mid-Atlantic region, temporal and seasonal trends of raccoon rabies cases reported in West Virginia from 1990 to 2007 were identified with both descriptive statistical analysis and exploratory time series analysis. Raccoon rabies cases in the non-ORV region maintain an enzootic pattern and increase over time; a bimodal seasonal pattern is observed with a large peak in April and a smaller peak in August. The results of the model indicate that the effect of the ORV intervention to control raccoon rabies was statistically significant. ORV should be attempted in other enzootic raccoon rabies areas.