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?)
Période du rapport: 2019-10-01 au 2021-09-30
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.
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.