TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bedard, Chloe
AU  - King-Dowling, Sara
AU  - McDonald, Madeline
AU  - Dunton, Genevieve
AU  - Cairney, John
AU  - Kwan, Matthew
PY  - 2017
DA  - 2017/05/31
TI  - Understanding Environmental and Contextual Influences of Physical Activity During First-Year University: The Feasibility of Using Ecological Momentary Assessment in the MovingU Study
JO  - JMIR Public Health Surveill
SP  - e32
VL  - 3
IS  - 2
KW  - exercise
KW  - compliance
KW  - feasibility studies
KW  - young adult
KW  - students
AB  - Background: It is well established that drastic declines in physical activity (PA) occur during young adults’ transition into university; however, our understanding of contextual and environmental factors as it relates to young adults’ PA is limited. Objective: The purpose of our study was to examine the feasibility of using wrist-worn accelerometers and the use of ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to assess the context and momentary correlates of PA on multiple occasions each day during first-year university. Methods: First-year university students were asked to participate in the study. The participants completed a brief questionnaire and were subsequently asked to wear an ActiGraph GT9X-Link accelerometer and respond to a series of EMA prompts (7/day) via their phones for 5 consecutive days. Results: A total of 96 first-year university students with smartphones agreed to participate in the study (mean age 18.3 [SD 0.51]; n=45 females). Overall, there was good compliance for wearing the accelerometers, with 91% (78/86) of the participants having ≥2 days of ≥10 hours of wear time (mean=3.53 valid days). Students were generally active, averaging 10,895 steps/day (SD 3413) or 1123.23 activity counts/min (SD 356.10). Compliance to EMA prompts was less desirable, with 64% (55/86) of the participants having usable EMA data (responding to a minimum of ≥3 days of 3 prompts/day or ≥4 days of 2 prompts/day), and only 47% (26/55) of these participants were considered to have excellent EMA compliance (responding to ≥5 days of 4 prompts/day or ≥ 4 days of 5 prompts/day). Conclusions: This study represents one of the first studies to use an intensive real-time data capture strategy to examine time-varying correlates of PA among first-year university students. These data will aim to describe the physical and social contexts in which PA occurs and examine the relationships between momentary correlates of PA among the first-year university students. Overall, current results suggest that wrist-worn accelerometers and EMA are feasible methods for data collection among the young adult population; however, more work is needed to understand how to improve upon compliance to a real-time data capture method such as EMA. 
SN  - 2369-2960
UR  - http://publichealth.jmir.org/2017/2/e32/
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2196/publichealth.7010
UR  - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28566264
DO  - 10.2196/publichealth.7010
ID  - info:doi/10.2196/publichealth.7010
ER  -