Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TUASPA (How does Time Use and availability affect the associations between Activity Space, the environment and Physical Activity among European Adults?)
Reporting period: 2019-10-01 to 2021-09-30
The World Health Organization recognizes the need to promote physical activity (PA) throughout everyday life, and recently the Council Recommendation on health-enhancing physical activity (HEPA) invited the European Commission to provide targeted support to get Europeans to reach international PA guidelines. Currently, almost 40% of European adults fail to reach physical activity recommendations making physical inactivity the responsible for about 1 million premature deaths per year in the WHO European Region alone. European citizens need to increase their physical activity, but at the same time they are increasingly pressed for time. The amount of time and resources that adults can invest in PA is limited both by temporal constraints and by their access to locations where they can be physically active. Some adults may not find enough free time to allocate into additional PA, while others may not have access to a park or a gym in which to be active. Both lack of time and lack of access can undermine policy efforts towards the promotion of PA. Individual decisions regarding physical activity are deeply rooted in personal time-space constraints, and the built environment accessible to each individual. Because of that we need to understand the balance between physical activity, time availability and use of active modes of transport. Policies and programs aimed at encouraging PA should target a different set of factors, depending on whether lack of PA is a product of a lack of time availability or lack of access. With that research need in mind, this project aims to incorporating the time availability factor to the study of the associations between the environment and physical activity. It does so by using accelerometer measures of physical activity, GPS-based tracking and Ecological Momentary Assessment reports to evaluate the possibilities and constraints for employed adults to increase their physical activity given their time-availability and the shape and contents of their daily activity space.
This project has tracked 150 employed individuals in the Barcelona area (Spain). These participants agreed to wear an accelerometer and a GPS device during a total of 7 days, and to answer a set of question prompted through their smartphone at the end of each participated day. Participants were tracked using dedicated devices that logged a data point every 15 seconds, allowing us to reconstruct their daily mobility, spatial travel behavior extent and physical activity. In combination with that, a specific set of questions were asked daily to gather information that could (1) inform the activity spaces created by their tracked data, and (2) gather information about their use of transport modes and their personal satisfaction with the levels of daily physical activity.
Using that information, we were able to reconstruct their activity spaces, travel distances and travel behavior and put them in relation with their total physical activity, time spent in transport and time spent in leisure physical activities. That link between spatial variables and behavior variables took the form of both cartographic and statistical analysis, using multilevel methods, and clustering spatial techniques (kernel density and dbscan). The complexity of the database, which gathered information derived from device-measured objective data on location and physical activity, self-reported satisfaction with physical activity levels, and GIS-based measures of exposure allowed us to delve into new research questions that had not been answered before. Such as the balance between time availability and the use of slower transportation modes like walking and cycling.
Understanding the balance activity space size and shape, and time availability to invest in further physical activity is a key concept to better understand the roots of physical inactivity. Together with that the project is able to analysis the role of the urban environment that falls within each participant activity space, enabling us to examine whether if environments with particular characteristics are more conducive to better physical activity levels once time availability is taken into account.
Using that information, we were able to reconstruct their activity spaces, travel distances and travel behavior and put them in relation with their total physical activity, time spent in transport and time spent in leisure physical activities. That link between spatial variables and behavior variables took the form of both cartographic and statistical analysis, using multilevel methods, and clustering spatial techniques (kernel density and dbscan). The complexity of the database, which gathered information derived from device-measured objective data on location and physical activity, self-reported satisfaction with physical activity levels, and GIS-based measures of exposure allowed us to delve into new research questions that had not been answered before. Such as the balance between time availability and the use of slower transportation modes like walking and cycling.
Understanding the balance activity space size and shape, and time availability to invest in further physical activity is a key concept to better understand the roots of physical inactivity. Together with that the project is able to analysis the role of the urban environment that falls within each participant activity space, enabling us to examine whether if environments with particular characteristics are more conducive to better physical activity levels once time availability is taken into account.
While the majority of our sample was generally satisfied with their weekly physical activity (59%), only 2% declared having vigorous physical activity every day, and only 5% declared to have any moderate PA daily. In contrast, 55% of the sample declared walking at least for a bout of 10 minutes everyday, and 55% declared that it was impossible for them to increase their physical activity due to lack of time. Interestingly, 13% of the sample declared that they could not increase physical activity due to not being able to travel more time or travel to a specific destination where to be active. For 92% of the sample their daily combination of modes of transport allows them to manage all their daily tasks, however 31% of them feel that their available time is always or often too short in relation with their daily travel and activity needs. A total of 52% of the sample declares that they would increase their physical activity if they had more time available. Preliminary analysis has demonstrated active transport users tend to be more satisfied with their overall physical activity, even if they are also the ones that more often spend longer times in trips and transportation. This indicates that active transport users are well-aware of the physical activity benefits of their modal choice, especially bike-users. It also indicates that there is a potential to increase the modal share of active travel, and that would not end up generating a lack of physical activity due to having less time to devote to exercising or less capacity to reach physical activity locations. Rather, the gains in physical activity derived directly from walking and cycling would compensate for the potential increase in total travel times to reach daily destinations and the potential accessibility loss derived from smaller reachable areas and more concentrated activity spaces.
One must bear in mind that the results from this project are still under development, as full mediation analysis are being run in order to completely account for time availability in the balance between the characteristics of the activity space, the attributes of the urban built environment and the modal choice and travel behavior of participants. Thus, the preliminary conclusions reached by the TUASPA project will need to be replicated and extended to different urban environments. Available results however point out towards the importance of taking time availability into account in further spatial energetics studies. Most importantly, understanding perception of lack of time as a key factor when dealing with public policies and programs aimed at incrementing physical activity levels at a population level. The TUASPA project confirms the existence of a complex set of balances and tradeoffs at the individual level when taking everyday decisions regarding time use, trip behavior and physical activity. Only by understanding these decisions will we be able to design better policies that can effectively raise physical activity levels. In that context, our data seems to indicate that the promotion of active transport in combination with urban environments can sustain proximity dynamics and the concentration of travel distances, might be in fact a valuable tool to get people to be more active.
One must bear in mind that the results from this project are still under development, as full mediation analysis are being run in order to completely account for time availability in the balance between the characteristics of the activity space, the attributes of the urban built environment and the modal choice and travel behavior of participants. Thus, the preliminary conclusions reached by the TUASPA project will need to be replicated and extended to different urban environments. Available results however point out towards the importance of taking time availability into account in further spatial energetics studies. Most importantly, understanding perception of lack of time as a key factor when dealing with public policies and programs aimed at incrementing physical activity levels at a population level. The TUASPA project confirms the existence of a complex set of balances and tradeoffs at the individual level when taking everyday decisions regarding time use, trip behavior and physical activity. Only by understanding these decisions will we be able to design better policies that can effectively raise physical activity levels. In that context, our data seems to indicate that the promotion of active transport in combination with urban environments can sustain proximity dynamics and the concentration of travel distances, might be in fact a valuable tool to get people to be more active.