An Assessment of Sedentary Time Among Undergraduate Students at an Urban Canadian University

The purpose of this study was to calculate a total daily sedentary time for the undergraduate population at a large urban Canadian University and discover student perceptions on the facilitators and barriers to engaging in a less sedentary lifestyle. A sample of 335 participants responded to an online survey, with 102 participants included in the quantitative analysis and 145 included in the qualitative analysis. Participants responded to the SIT-Q Sedentary Behaviour Questionnaire and two opened ended questions. Analysis of the SIT-Q demonstrated that undergraduate student’s have daily sedentary times similar to previously studied adults with a significant amount of sedentary time allocated to study. Three themes were identified as facilitators to engaging in a less sedentary lifestyle: 1) access to a gym, 2) student jobs, and 3) walking to and on campus. Two themes were identified as barriers to engaging in a less sedentary lifestyle: 1) sitting in class and 2) studying outside of class. The results suggest that like desk-based working adults, undergraduate student’s have levels of sedentary behaviour that warrant further investigation and intervention, perhaps most effectively within the university classroom

The Creation and Application of a Validated Tool to Measure the Impact of Mobile Standing Desks on Undergraduate Students\u27 Sedentary Time

Undergraduate students (UGS) are highly sedentary, which may elevate their health risks. However, before the effectiveness of an undergraduate sedentary time (ST) intervention can be assessed, accurate and applicable measurement tools need to be identified. The overall purposes of this research program were to first, evaluate the validity of two weekly ST questionnaires compared with criterion data in homogenous samples of UGS (Studies 1 and 2); and second, to measure the effect of providing UGS with mobile standing desks for one-week (Study 3) and one-month (Study 4), while also exploring students’ perceptions about using the desks. Each study built on the findings of the study that came before it, with Studies 1 and 2, and Studies 3 and 4 presented together. In Study 1, UGS wore the activPAL4TM for one week and then completed the PAST-WEEK-U (PWU). In Study 2, UGS wore the activPAL4TM for one week and simultaneously completed the NIGHTLY-WEEK-U (NWU). The agreement between the self-report and criterion measures were assessed via Bland-Altman plots. In Study 3, UGS were provided with a mobile standing desk for one week and their ST was measured using the activPAL4TM and NWU. In Study 4, UGS were provided with a mobile standing desk for one month and their ST was measured with an online version of the NWU. Semi-structured interviews (Study 3) and online opened-ended questions (Study 4) explored participants’ experiences with the desks. The results of Studies 1 and 2 revealed that the NWU outperformed the PWU with much tighter limits of agreement (-1.75 to 2.17 vs. -5.38 to 5.55 hours), making it better suited for use in future intervention studies. In Studies 3 and 4, mobile standing desks were associated with a significant reduction in one-week (objective: p= 0.0045; self-report: p= 0.0005) and one-month (self-report: p= This dissertation’s studies are valuable for future intervention research aimed at UGS ST, and may contribute to future health gains for an expanding and important population

Are COVID-19 models blind to the social determinants of health? A systematic review protocol

Introduction Infectious disease models are important tools to inform public health policy decisions. These models are primarily based on an average population approach and often ignore the role of social determinants in predicting the course of a pandemic and the impact of policy interventions. Ignoring social determinants in models may cause or exacerbate inequalities. This limitation has not been previously explored in the context of the current pandemic, where COVID-19 has been found to disproportionately affect marginalised racial, ethnic and socioeconomic groups. Therefore, our primary goal is to identify the extent to which COVID-19 models incorporate the social determinants of health in predicting outcomes of the pandemic. Methods and analysis We will search MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Library and Web of Science databases from December 2019 to August 2020. We will assess all infectious disease modelling studies for inclusion of social factors that meet the following criteria: (a) focused on human spread of SARS-CoV-2; (b) modelling studies; (c) interventional or non-interventional studies; and (d) focused on one of the following outcomes: COVID-19-related outcomes (eg, cases, deaths), non-COVID-19-related outcomes (ie, impacts of the pandemic or control policies on other health conditions or health services), or impact of the pandemic or control policies on economic outcomes. Data will only be extracted from models incorporating social factors. We will report the percentage of models that considered social factors, indicate which social factors were considered, and describe how social factors were incorporated into the conceptualisation and implementation of the infectious disease models. The extracted data will also be used to create a narrative synthesis of the results. Ethics and dissemination Ethics approval is not required as only secondary data will be collected. The results of this systematic review will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publication and conference proceedings. PROSPERO registration number CRD42020207706

MHD measurements in the von Kármán sodium experiment

We study the magnetic induction in a confined swirling flow of liquid sodium, at integral magnetic Reynolds numbers up to 50. More precisely, we measure in situ the magnetic field induced by the flow motion in the presence of a weak external field. Because of the very small value of the magnetic Prandtl number of all liquid metals, flows with even modest Rm are strongly turbulent. Large mean induction effects are observed over a fluctuating background. As expected from the von Kármán flow geometry, the induction is strongly anisotropic. The main contributions are the generation of an azimuthal induced field when the applied field is in the axial direction ~an V effect! and the generation of axial induced field when the applied field is the transverse direction ~as in a large scale a effect!. Strong fluctuations of the induced field, due to the flow nonstationarity, occur over time scales slower than the flow forcing frequency. In the spectral domain, they display a f21 spectral slope. At smaller scales ~and larger frequencies! the turbulent fluctuations are in agreement with a Kolmogorov modeling of passive vector dynamics

An Assessment of Sedentary Time Among Undergraduate Students at a Canadian University

he purpose of this study was to calculate a total daily sedentary time for the undergraduate population at a large urban Canadian University and investigate student perceptions of the facilitators and barriers to engaging in a less sedentary lifestyle. A sample of 335 participants responded to an online questionnaire that included the SIT-Q and open-ended questions, with 102 providing sufficient data to be included in the quantitative analysis and 145 in the qualitative analysis. Students spent an average of 11.88 ± 3.46 hrs/day engaged in sedentary behaviors. Three themes were identified as facilitators to engaging in a less sedentary lifestyle: 1) access to a gym, 2) student jobs, and 3) walking to and on campus. Two themes were identified as barriers to engaging in a less sedentary lifestyle: 1) sitting in class and 2) studying outside of class. Similar to desk-based working adults, undergraduate students have levels of sedentary behavior that warrant further investigation and intervention, perhaps most effectively within the universityclassroom