A longitudinal study of the distance that young people walk to school.

Walking or cycling to school has been associated with important health benefits. Distance between home and school is the main correlate of active commuting to school, but how far children walk to school and how this changes as children age is unknown. Mode of commuting and objectively-assessed distance to school were measured at 3 time points: aged 9/10 years, 10/11 years and 13/14 years. Data were analysed using ROC-curve analyses. With age, children walked further to school; the threshold distance that best discriminated walkers from passive commuters was 1421 m in 10-year-olds, 1627 m in 11-year-olds and 3046 m in 14-year-olds. Future interventions should consider the distance that young people actually walk.The SPEEDY study is funded by the National Prevention Research Initiative (http://www.npri.org.uk), consisting of the following Funding Partners: British Heart Foundation; Cancer Research UK; Department of Health; Diabetes UK; Economic and Social Research Council; Medical Research Council; Health and Social Care Research and Development Office for the Northern Ireland; Chief Scientist Office, Scottish Government Health Directorates; Welsh Assembly Government and World Cancer Research Fund. This work was also supported by the Medical Research Council [Unit Programme numbers MC_UU_12015/7; MC_UU_12015/4] and the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR), a UKCRC Public Health Research: Centre of Excellence. Funding from the British Heart Foundation, Economic and Social Research Council, Medical Research Council, the National Institute for Health Research, and the Wellcome Trust, under the auspices of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, is gratefully acknowledged. Jenna Panter is funded through a post-doctoral fellowship funded by the National Institute of Health Research. The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the NIHR PHR programme or the Department of Health.This is the final version. It was first published by Elsevier at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S135382921400159

Percepción de las conductas contrarias a la convivencia en el profesorado de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria

The learning environment influences the teaching-learning process as well as the welfare of the educational community members. Moreover, it is a question addressed by numerous scientific studies.The main objective of this research project is to describe and analyze the main conflicting behaviors of students in mandatory secondary education and relate to variables such as the location of institutions and participants, teacher gender, years of seniority as a teacher, management position and educational stage.In the research we worked with a sample of 147 teachers of Physical Education actively practicing in mandatory secondary education schools. Participants completed two ad hoc questionnaires to evaluate students´ problem behaviour at school. We followed the ‘factor analysis’ approach and finally we obtained five behavioural factors. We also applied the chi-squared test or so-called ‘Exact test of Fisher’ to associate these behaviours to other relevant variables. We conclude that the most frequent unruly behaviour are disruptive attitude and verbal abuse. Behaviours related to “Defiance and bullying” are more likely to happen when teachers are women. Less experienced teachers recorded more “attention deficit” behaviours in their classroom. Teachers having experience on management positions had to deal less often with behaviours related to “attention deficit” and “misuse of materials”.La convivencia escolar en los centros educativos influye en el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje, así como en el bienestar de los miembros de la comunidad educativa. Además, es una cuestión abordada por numerosos estudios científicos. El objetivo principal del presente trabajo es describir y analizar las principales conductas contrarias a la convivencia en Educación Secundaria Obligatoria y relacionarlas con variables como la ciudad de procedencia, género del profesor, antigüedad en el cuerpo, desempeño de cargo directivo y ciclo educativo.Los participantes son 147 profesores de Educación Física que ejercen activamente la profesión en centros de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria. Dicha muestra cumplimentó individual y expresamente dos cuestionarios diseñados “ad hoc” para evaluar las conductas contrarias a la convivencia en el alumnado. A las conductas se les aplicó la técnica de análisis factorial obteniendo finalmente cinco factores de conducta. Además, se aplicó chi-cuadrado o test exacto de Fisher para relacionar las conductas con otras variables de interés.Se concluye que las conductas contrarias a la convivencia más frecuentes son las disruptivas y las agresiones verbales. Respecto al género del profesorado las conductas pertenecientes a “desafío y acoso” son más frecuentes cuando la profesora es mujer que cuando el profesor es hombre. Cuantos menos años lleva el profesor en el cuerpo, más frecuentes son las conductas pertenecientes a “déficit de atención”. Las conductas pertenecientes a “déficit de atención” y “mal uso de materiales” son más frecuentes cuando el profesor no desempeña ni ha desempeñado cargo directivo alguno.

Feasibility and Reliability of a Questionnaire to Assess the Mode, Frequency, Distance and Time of Commuting to and from School: The PACO Study

Active commuting to and from school has several health implications. Self-reporting is the most common assessment tool, but there is a high heterogeneity of questionnaires in the scientific literature. The purpose of this study was to analyse the feasibility and reliability of the Spanish “New Version of Mode and Frequency of Commuting To and From School” questionnaire in children and adolescents. A total of 635 children (5–12 years old) and 362 adolescents (12–18 years old) filled out the questionnaire twice (14 days apart). Feasibility was evaluated using an observational checklist. The test-retest reliability of the “New Version of Mode and Frequency of Commuting To and From School” questionnaire and the distance and time to school were examined using the kappa and weight kappa coefficient (κ). No misunderstanding of questions was reported. The time to complete the questionnaire was 15 ± 3.62 and 9 ± 2.26 min for children and adolescents, respectively. The questionnaire showed substantial and almost perfect kappa coefficients for the overall six items (k = 0.61–0.94) in children and adolescents. The “New Version of Mode and Frequency of Commuting To and From School” questionnaire is a feasible and reliable questionnaire in Spanish children and adolescents.Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and CompetitivenessEuropean Union (EU) DEP2016-75598-RUniversity of Granada, Plan Propio de Investigacion 2016, excellence actions: Units of ExcellenceUnit of Excellence on Exercise and Health (UCEES)Junta de AndaluciaConsejeria de Conocimiento, Investigacion y UniversidadesEuropean Union (EU) SOMM17/6107/UGREuropean Social Fund (ESF

Psychometric characteristics of a commuting-to-school behaviour questionnaire for families

The purposes of this study were: (a) to describe the patterns of modes of commuting to school (children) and to work (parents) separated by gender and age, (b) to validate the questions on children’s mode of commuting to and from school according to their parents, and (c) to analyse the reliability of a family questionnaire focused on commuting to school behaviours. A total of 611 parents (mean age: 43.28 ± 6.25 years old) from Granada (Spain) completed “Family commuting-to-school behaviour” questionnaire in two sessions separated by 14 days, (2016 and 2018). The validation between family and children’s questions was assessed using the Kappa and Spearman correlation coefficients, and the test–retest reliability within the family questions was assessed using the Kappa and the weighted Kappa. The children’s modes of commuting to school (mean age: 11.44 ± 2.77 years old) were mainly passive (57.7% to school) while parents’ modes of commuting to work were mainly active (71.6%). The validity of the mode of commuting was significant with high Kappa and Spearman coefficients. The test–retest reliability presented a good agreement for the mode of commuting to school in children, distance and time to school, and the mode of commuting to work in parents, while the questions on acceptable distance to walk or cycle to school showed a moderate to good agreement. The “Family commuting-to-school behaviour” questionnaire could be a useful tool to assess the mode of commuting of children, distance and time to school for researchers and practitioners

Effects of a school-based intervention on active commuting to school and health-related fitness

Background: Active commuting to school has declined over time, and interventions are needed to reverse this trend. The main objective was to investigate the effects of a school-based intervention on active commuting to school and health-related fitness in school-age children of Southern Spain. Methods: A total of 494 children aged 8 to 11 years were invited to participate in the study. The schools were non-randomly allocated (i.e., school level allocation) into the experimental group (EG) or the control group (CG). The EG received an intervention program for 6 months (a monthly activity) focused on increasing the level of active commuting to school and mainly targeting children’s perceptions and attitudes. Active commuting to school and health-related fitness (i.e., cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular fitness and speed-agility), were measured at baseline and at the end of the intervention. Children with valid data on commuting to school at baseline and follow-up, sex, age and distance from home to school were included in the final analysis (n = 251). Data was analyzed through a factorial ANOVA and the Bonferroni post-hoc test. Results: At follow up, the EG had higher rates of cycling to school than CG for boys only (p = 0.04), but not for walking to school for boys or girls. The EG avoided increases in the rates of passive commuting at follow up, which increased in the CG among girls for car (MD = 1.77; SE = 0.714; p = 0.010) and bus (MD = 1.77; SE = 0.714; p = 0.010) modes. Moreover, we observed significant interactions and main effects between independent variables (study group, sex and assessment time point) on health-related fitness (p < 0.05) over the 6-month period between groups, with higher values in the control group (mainly in boys). Conclusion: A school-based intervention focused on increasing active commuting to school was associated with increases in rates of cycling to school among boys, but not for walking to school or health-related fitness. However, the school-based intervention avoided increases in rates of passive commuting in the experimental group, which were significantly increased in girls of the control group

SYNTHESYS+ Virtual Access - Report on the Ideas Call (October to November 2019)

The SYNTHESYS consortium has been operational since 2004, and has facilitated physical access by individual researchers to European natural history collections through its Transnational Access programme (TA). For the first time, SYNTHESYS+ will be offering virtual access to collections through digitisation, with two calls for the programme, the first in 2020 and the second in 2021. The Virtual Access (VA) programme is not a direct digital parallel of Transnational Access - proposals for collections digitisation will be prioritised and carried out based on community demand, and data must be made openly available immediately. A key feature of Virtual Access is that, unlike TA, it does not select the researchers to whom access is provided. Because Virtual Access in this way is new to the community and to the collections-holding institutions, the SYNTHESYS+ consortium invited ideas through an Ideas Call, that opened on 7th October 2019 and closed on 22nd November 2019, in order to assess interest and to trial procedures. This report is intended to provide feedback to those who participated in the Ideas Call and to help all applicants to the first SYNTHESYS+Virtual Access Call that will be launched on 20th of February 2020.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The attached file is the published pdf

Active commuting to and from university, obesity and metabolic syndrome among Colombian university students

Background: There is limited evidence concerning how active commuting (AC) is associated with health benefits in young. The aim of the study was to analyze the relationship between AC to and from campus (walking) and obesity and metabolic syndrome (MetS) in a sample of Colombian university students. Methods: A total of 784 university students (78.6% women, mean age = 20.1 ± 2.6 years old) participated in the study. The exposure variable was categorized into AC (active walker to campus) and non-AC (non/infrequent active walker to campus: car, motorcycle, or bus) to and from the university on a typical day. MetS was defined in accordance with the updated harmonized criteria of the International Diabetes Federation criteria. Results: The overall prevalence of MetS was 8.7%, and it was higher in non-AC than AC to campus. The percentage of AC was 65.3%. The commuting distances in this AC from/to university were 83.1%, 13.4% and 3.5% for < 2 km, 2- 5 km and > 5 km, respectively. Multiple logistic regressions for predicting unhealthy profile showed that male walking commuters had a lower probability of having obesity [OR = 0.45 (CI 95% 0.25–0.93)], high blood pressure [OR = 0.26 (CI 95% 0.13–0.55)] and low HDL cholesterol [OR = 0.29 (CI 95% 0.14–0.59)] than did passive commuters. Conclusions: Our results suggest that in young adulthood, a key life-stage for the development of obesity and MetS, AC could be associated with and increasing of daily physical activity levels, thereby promoting better cardiometabolic health.This study was part of the project entitled “Body Adiposity Index and Biomarkers of Endothelial and Cardiovascular Health in Adults”, which was funded by Centre for Studies on Measurement of Physical Activity, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universidad del Rosario (Code N° FIUR DNBG001) and Universidad de Boyacá (Code N° RECT 60)