The Complete Health Improvement Program (CHIP): History, Evaluation and Outcomes

Abstract

The Complete Health Improvement Program (CHIP) is a premier lifestyle intervention targeting chronic disease that has been offered for over 25 years. The intervention has been utilized in clinical, corporate and community settings and the short and longer-term clinical benefits of the intervention, as well as its cost-effectiveness, have been documented in over 25 peer-reviewed publications. Being an easily administered intervention, CHIP has been presented not only by health professionals, but also non-health trained volunteers. The benefits of the program have been extensively studied under these two delivery channels, consistently demonstrating positive outcomes. This paper provides a brief history of CHIP and describes the content and structure of the intervention. The published evaluations and outcomes of the intervention are presented and discussed and future directions are highlighted.