Development of key policy recommendations for active transport in New Zealand: A multi-sector and multidisciplinary endeavour

Background: Despite national-level initiatives to encourage active transport (AT) in New Zealand since 2005, rates of AT have continued to decline in most parts of the country, with negative impacts on health and the environment. This article describes the development of key policy recommendations for increasing AT in New Zealand. The goal was to establish a cohesive set of priority recommendations to inform AT decision-making in central and local government, district health boards, public health units and regional sports trusts in New Zealand. Project description: The development of policy recommendations was a planned outcome of multi-sectoral discussions held at The Active Living and Environment Symposium (TALES; Dunedin, New Zealand; February 2019). A ten-member working group consisting of TALES symposium delegates working in academia, industry and non-governmental organisations led the development of the recommendations. Symposium delegates contributed their expertise to draft recommendations and reports prior to, during and after the symposium. Importance and feasibility of each recommended action were independently evaluated by working group members. The final set of 13 policy recommendations (and 39 associated actions) included: making a national-level commitment to change; establishing a nationally coordinated and funded programme of education and promotion of AT; making a commitment to design cities for people, not cars; and developing a regulatory system that encourages AT. The report aligns with the current New Zealand government's increased focus on wellbeing, walking, cycling, public transport and the Vision Zero approach. A final report was officially launched in April 2019 with presentations to stakeholders April-May 2019. Conclusions: This cross-sector effort resulted in a report with a set of recommendations designed to stimulate the development of a new AT strategy for New Zealand; prompt setting of targets and monitoring progress/outcomes; and inform New Zealand's response to the World Health Organization's Global Action Plan on Physical Activity 2018–2030

Turning the Tide from Cars to Active Transport: Policy Recommendations for New Zealand

Background: Despite national-level efforts to encourage active transport in New Zealand since 2005, rates of active transport have continued to decline in most parts of the country, with negative impacts on health and the environment. / Purpose: We describe the development of key policy recommendations for active transport in New Zealand as an outcome of multi-sectoral discussions held at The Active Living and Environment Symposium (TALES; www.otago.ac.nz/active-living-2019; Dunedin, New Zealand; February 2019). The goal was to establish a set of priority recommendations to inform active transport decision-making in central and local government, public health units and regional sports trusts in New Zealand. / Project Description: The development of recommendations was planned and led by a working group consisting of ten TALES symposium delegates working in academia, industry and non-governmental organisations with prior work experience in central/local government and the private sector. Symposium delegates provided input prior to the symposium (delegates submitted 1-3 policy recommendations); during the symposium (delegates challenged/discussed/modified the first draft of recommendations at a dedicated final day session); and after the symposium (delegates provided feedback on the second draft of recommendations and associated actions). Using an online survey, the working group members also independently evaluated importance and feasibility of each recommended action before inclusion in the document. The final 13 recommendations (and 39 associated actions) were grouped across four broad categories: A) Evaluation, governance and funding; B) Education and encouragement/promotion; C) Engineering (infrastructure, built environment); and D) Enforcement and regulations. The report aligns with the New Zealand government’s increased focus on wellbeing, walking, cycling, public transport and Vision Zero approach, and recommends national targets for walking, cycling and public transport by 2050. The report was officially launched in April 2019. Initial discussions of recommendations with relevant stakeholders were conducted in four major urban centres in April-May 2019. / Conclusions: This cross-sector effort resulted in a report that has the potential to stimulate the development of a new active transport strategy for New Zealand; prompt setting of targets and monitoring progress/outcomes; and inform New Zealand’s response to the World Health Organization’s Global Action Plan on Physical Activity 2018-2030. Key policy recommendations for active transport in New Zealand include: making a national-level commitment to change; establishing a nationally coordinated and funded programme of education and promotion of active transport; creating a commitment to design cities for people and not for cars; and developing a regulatory system that encourages the use of active transport

Policy-relevant spatial indicators of urban liveability and sustainability : Scaling from local to global

[English] Urban liveability is a global priority for creating healthy, sustainable cities. Measurement of policy-relevant spatial indicators of the built and natural environment supports city planning at all levels of government. Analysis of their spatial distribution within cities, and impacts on individuals and communities, is crucial to ensure planning decisions are effective and equitable. This paper outlines challenges and lessons from a 5-year collaborative research program, scaling up a software workflow for calculating a composite indicator of urban liveability for residential address points across Melbourne, to Australia’s 21 largest cities, and further extension to 25 global cities in diverse contexts. [Chinese] 城市宜居性是创建健康、可持续城市的全球优先事项。对建筑和自然环境的政策相关空间指标的测量支持各级政府的城市规划。分析它们在城市中的空间分布，以及对个人和社区的影响，对于确保规划决策的有效性和公平性至关重要。本文概述了一个为期5年的合作研究项目所面临的挑战和经验教训，该项目将计算墨尔本住宅地址点的城市宜居性综合指标的软件工作流程扩大到澳大利亚21个最大的城市，并进一步扩展到25个不同背景的全球城市

Stand Out in Class: restructuring theclassroom environment to reducesedentary behaviour in 9–10-year-olds—study protocol for a pilot clusterrandomised controlled trial

Background: Sedentary behaviour (sitting) is a highly prevalent negative health behaviour, with individuals of allages exposed to environments that promote prolonged sitting. Excessive sedentary behaviour adversely affects health inchildren and adults. As sedentary behaviour tracks from childhood into adulthood, the reduction of sedentary time inyoung people is key for the prevention of chronic diseases that result from excessive sitting in later life. The sedentaryschool classroom represents an ideal setting for environmentalchange, through the provision of sit-stand desks. Whilstthe use of sit-stand desks in classrooms demonstrates positiveeffects in some key outcomes, evidence is currently limitedby small samples and/or short intervention durations, withfewstudiesadoptingrandomisedcontrolledtrial(RCT)designs. This paper describes the protocol of a pilot cluster RCT of a sit-stand desk interventioninprimaryschoolclassrooms.Methods/Design:A two-arm pilot cluster RCT will be conducted in eight primary schools (four intervention, four control)with at least 120 year 5 children (aged 9–10 years). Sit-stand desks will replace six standard desks in the interventionclassrooms. Teachers will be encouraged to ensure all pupils are exposed to the sit-stand desks for at least 1 h/dayon average using a rotation system. Schools assigned to the control arm will continue with their usual practice, noenvironmental changes will be made to their classrooms. Measurements will be taken at baseline, beforerandomisation, and at the end of the schools’academic year. In this study, the primary outcomes of interest will beschool and participant recruitment and attrition, acceptability of the intervention, and acceptability and complianceto the proposed outcome measures (including activPAL-measured school-time and school-day sitting, accelerometer-measured physical activity, adiposity, blood pressure, cognitive function, academic progress, engagement, andbehaviour) for inclusion in a definitive trial. A full process evaluation and an exploratory economic evaluation willalso be conducted to further inform a definitive tria

Environmental and socio-demographic associates of children's active transport to school: a cross-sectional investigation from the URBAN Study

BACKGROUND: Active transport (e.g., walking, cycling) to school (ATS) can contribute to children's physical activity and health. The built environment is acknowledged as an important factor in understanding children's ATS, alongside parental factors and seasonality. Inconsistencies in methodological approaches exist, and a clear understanding of factors related to ATS remains equivocal. The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of associates of children's ATS, by considering the effects of daily weather patterns and neighbourhood walk ability and neighbourhood preferences (i.e., for living in a high or low walkable neighbourhood) on this behaviour. METHODS: Data were drawn from the Understanding Relationships between Activity and Neighbourhoods study, a cross-sectional study of physical activity and the built environment in adults and children in four New Zealand cities. Parents of participating children completed an interview and daily trip diary that assessed their child's mode of travel to school, household and individual demographic information, and parental neighbourhood preference. Daily weather data were downloaded from New Zealand's national climate database. Geographic information systems-derived variables were calculated for distance to school and neighbourhood walkability. Bivariate analyses were conducted with ATS and potential associates; factors related to ATS at p less than 0.20 were considered simultaneously in generalized estimation equation models, and backwards elimination of non-significant factors was conducted; city was treated as a fixed effect in all models. RESULTS: A total of 217 children aged 6.5-15 years participated in this study. Female sex, age, city, household income, limited/no car access, residing in zone of school, shorter distance to school, neighbourhood self selection, rainfall, and sunlight hours were simultaneously considered in multivariate generalised estimation equation modelling (all p less than 0.20 in bivariate analyses). After elimination of non-significant factors, age (p = 0.005), shorter distance to school (p less than 0.001), city (p = 0.03), and neighbourhood self selection (p = 0.04) remained significantly associated with ATS in the multivariate analysis. CONCLUSION: Distance to school is the prevailing environmental influencing factor on children's ATS. This study, in conjunction with previous research, suggests that school siting is likely an important associate of children's ATS

Understanding the Relationship between Activity and Neighbourhoods (URBAN) Study: research design and methodology

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Built environment attributes are recognized as being important contributors to physical activity (PA) engagement and body size in adults and children. However, much of the existing research in this emergent public health field is hindered by methodological limitations, including: population and site homogeneity, reliance on self-report measures, aggregated measures of PA, and inadequate statistical modeling. As an integral component of multi-country collaborative research, the Understanding the Relationship between Activity and Neighbourhoods (URBAN) Study seeks to overcome these limitations by determining the strengths of association between detailed measures of the neighborhood built environment with PA levels across multiple domains and body size measures in adults and children. This article outlines the research protocol developed for the URBAN Study.</p> <p>Methods and design</p> <p>The URBAN Study is a multi-centered, stratified, cross-sectional research design, collecting data across four New Zealand cities. Within each city, 12 neighborhoods were identified and selected for investigation based on higher or lower walkability and Māori demographic attributes. Neighborhoods were selected to ensure equal representation of these characteristics. Within each selected neighborhood, 42 households are being randomly selected and an adult and child (where possible) recruited into the study. Data collection includes: objective and self-reported PA engagement, neighborhood perceptions, demographics, and body size measures. The study was designed to recruit approximately 2,000 adults and 250 children into the project. Other aspects of the study include photovoice, which is a qualitative assessment of built environment features associated with PA engagement, an audit of the neighborhood streetscape environment, and an individualized neighborhood walkability profile centered on each participant's residential address. Multilevel modeling will be used to examine the individual-level and neighborhood-level relationships with PA engagement and body size.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>The URBAN Study is applying a novel scientifically robust research design to provide urgently needed epidemiological information regarding the associations between the built environment and health outcomes. The findings will contribute to a larger, international initiative in which similar neighborhood selection and PA measurement procedures are utilized across eight countries. Accordingly, this study directly addresses the international priority issues of increasing PA engagement and decreasing obesity levels.</p

Developing a Citizen Social Science approach to understand urban stress and promote wellbeing in urban communities

This paper sets out the future potential and challenges for developing an interdisciplinary, mixed-method Citizen Social Science approach to researching urban emotions. It focuses on urban stress, which is increasingly noted as a global mental health challenge facing both urbanised and rapidly urbanising societies. The paper reviews the existing use of mobile psychophysiological or biosensing within urban environments—as means of ‘capturing’ the urban geographies of emotions. Methodological reflections are included on primary research using biosensing in a study of workplace and commuter stress for university employees in Birmingham (UK) and Salzburg (Austria) for illustrative purposes. In comparing perspectives on the conceptualisation and measurement of urban stress from psychology, neuroscience and urban planning, the difficulties of defining scientific constructs within Citizen Science are discussed to set out the groundwork for fostering interdisciplinary dialogue. The novel methods, geo-located sensor technologies and data-driven approaches to researching urban stress now available to researchers pose a number of ethical, political and conceptual challenges around defining and measuring emotions, stress, human behaviour and urban space. They also raise issues of rigour, participation and social scientific interpretation. Introducing methods informed by more critical Citizen Social Science perspectives can temper overly individualised forms of data collection to establish more effective ways of addressing urban stress and promoting wellbeing in urban communities

Status and trends of physical activity surveillance, policy, and research in 164 countries: Findings from the Global Observatory for Physical Activity—GoPA! 2015 and 2020 Surveys

BACKGROUND: Physical activity (PA) surveillance, policy, and research efforts need to be periodically appraised to gain insight into national and global capacities for PA promotion. The aim of this paper was to assess the status and trends in PA surveillance, policy, and research in 164 countries. METHODS: We used data from the Global Observatory for Physical Activity (GoPA!) 2015 and 2020 surveys. Comprehensive searches were performed for each country to determine the level of development of their PA surveillance, policy, and research, and the findings were verified by the GoPA! Country Contacts. Trends were analyzed based on the data available for both survey years. RESULTS: The global 5-year progress in all 3 indicators was modest, with most countries either improving or staying at the same level. PA surveillance, policy, and research improved or remained at a high level in 48.1%, 40.6%, and 42.1% of the countries, respectively. PA surveillance, policy, and research scores decreased or remained at a low level in 8.3%, 15.8%, and 28.6% of the countries, respectively. The highest capacity for PA promotion was found in Europe, the lowest in Africa and low- and lower-middle-income countries. Although a large percentage of the world's population benefit from at least some PA policy, surveillance, and research efforts in their countries, 49.6 million people are without PA surveillance, 629.4 million people are without PA policy, and 108.7 million live in countries without any PA research output. A total of 6.3 billion people or 88.2% of the world's population live in countries where PA promotion capacity should be significantly improved. CONCLUSION: Despite PA is essential for health, there are large inequalities between countries and world regions in their capacity to promote PA. Coordinated efforts are needed to reduce the inequalities and improve the global capacity for PA promotion