This study aims to understand how children perceive their environment, exploring the affordances children perceive to influence their physical activity (PA) behaviour when outside. Participants included boys and girls aged 10–12 years (n = 15) living in Scotland. Children's visual and verbal representations of their perceived environment were analysed to assess environmental determinants of PA. The findings suggested that physical affordances that offer a sense of risk were important to children's play spaces. Social affordances influenced where the children went in their environment and the features they utilised as part of play behaviour; strangers were considered threatening depending on whether the activity was recognised.
Background: Informal caregivers, or carers (unpaid family members and friends), are instrumental to millions worldwide for the ongoing delivery of health and well-being needs. The risk of crisis points (eg, hospitalizations) for caregivers increases with the absence of physical activity. The COVID-19 pandemic is highly likely to have increased the risk of crisis points for caregivers by increasing the amount of time spent indoors due to shielding and lockdown restrictions. Thus, accessible evidence-based tools to facilitate physical activity for caregivers indoors are urgently needed. Objective: The aim of this study was to co-design and develop a novel mobile app to educate and support carers in the undertaking of regular physical activity at home during and beyond COVID-19 restrictions via integration of the transtheoretical model of behavior change and UK physical activity guidelines. Methods: We co-designed a mobile app, "CareFit," by directly involving caregivers, health care professionals, and social care professionals in the requirements, capturing, and evaluation phases of three Agile Scrum design and development sprints. Seven participants representing multistakeholder views took part in three co-design sessions, each of which was followed by a development sprint. Requirements for CareFit were grounded in a combination of behavioral change science and UK government guidelines for physical activity. Results: Participants identified different barriers and enablers to physical activity, such as a lack of time, recognition of existing activities, and concerns regarding safely undertaking physical activity. Requirements analysis highlighted the importance of simplicity in design and a need to anchor development around the everyday needs of caregivers (eg, easy-To-use video instructions). Our final prototype app integrated guidance for undertaking physical activity at home through educational, physical activity, and communication components. Conclusions: Integrating government guidelines with models of ...
There have been growing concerns in England about increasing numbers of students, many of whom have Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) or come from disadvantaged backgrounds, who experience education disaffection and failure (Farouk 2017; DfE 2017; Perraudin and McIntyre 2018; Edwards 2018). Moreover, there have been increasing calls for research that works collaboratively with students and other stakeholders (ie parents and school leaders) to address these issues (see Edwards and Brown 2020). This article explores students' and their parents' experiences in relation to school exclusion. Drawing on participant action research methods three former excluded students and their parents who successfully re-engaged their education were trained to carry out interviews with five recently excluded secondary school students and their parents. Findings from the interviews stand juxtaposed to political discourses that view exclusion as being influenced by poor parenting or student deviance. Rather, our findings illustrate a spiral of disillusionment, educational disengagement, fractured relationships between students, parents and teachers that emerges as our participants encountered a series of life events that coincided with the educational processes in schools. We consider these findings and, in line with Freire (1972; 2005), we propose a dialogic and relational intervention that enables excluded students to collaborate with their parents and school leaders to make meaningful changes to their own and their schools' practices in order to help them re-engage with their education.
Funding: This study was funded by the MRC National Prevention Research Initiative (www.npri.org.uk), grant award No G0802030. National Prevention Research Initiative is a national research initiative administered by the Medical Research Council made up of the following funding partners: Alzheimer's Research Trust; Alzheimer's Society; Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council; Cancer Research UK; Chief Scientist Office, Scottish Government Health Directorate; Department of Health; Diabetes UK; Economic and Social Research Council; Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council; Health and Social Care Research and Development Office for Northern Ireland; Medical Research Council; Welsh Assembly Government; and World Cancer Research Fund. Further financial support was provided by NHS Research Scotland to carry out this work. The Health Services Research Unit, University of Aberdeen, is core funded by the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health Directorates ; Peer reviewed ; Publisher PDF
Background: Ecological models are currently the most used approaches to classify and conceptualise determinants of sedentary behaviour, but these approaches are limited in their ability to capture the complexity of and interplay between determinants. The aim of the project described here was to develop a transdisciplinary dynamic framework, grounded in a system-based approach, for research on determinants of sedentary behaviour across the life span and intervention and policy planning and evaluation. Methods: A comprehensive concept mapping approach was used to develop the Systems Of Sedentary behaviours (SOS) framework, involving four main phases: (1) preparation, (2) generation of statements, (3) structuring (sorting and ranking), and (4) analysis and interpretation. The first two phases were undertaken between December 2013 and February 2015 by the DEDIPAC KH team (DEterminants of DIet and Physical Activity Knowledge Hub). The last two phases were completed during a two-day consensus meeting in June 2015. Results: During the first phase, 550 factors regarding sedentary behaviour were listed across three age groups (i.e., youths, adults and older adults), which were reduced to a final list of 190 life course factors in phase 2 used during the consensus meeting. In total, 69 international delegates, seven invited experts and one concept mapping consultant attended the consensus meeting. The final framework obtained during that meeting consisted of six clusters of determinants: Physical Health and Wellbeing (71 % consensus), Social and Cultural Context (59 % consensus), Built and Natural Environment (65 % consensus), Psychology and Behaviour (80 % consensus), Politics and Economics (78 % consensus), and Institutional and Home Settings (78 % consensus). Conducting studies on Institutional Settings was ranked as the first research priority. The view that this framework captures a system-based map of determinants of sedentary behaviour was expressed by 89 % of the participants. Conclusion: Through an international transdisciplinary consensus process, the SOS framework was developed for the determinants of sedentary behaviour through the life course. Investigating the influence of Institutional and Home Settings was deemed to be the most important area of research to focus on at present and potentially the most modifiable. The SOS framework can be used as an important tool to prioritise future research and to develop policies to reduce sedentary time.
