Measuring Active Transportation on National Health Surveys in Canada From 1994 to 2020.

Background: Active transportation (AT), described as self-powered modes of travel (eg, walking and cycling), is an important source of health-promoting physical activity. While AT behaviors have been measured on national health surveys in Canada for over 2 decades, historic prevalence has not been previously reported. We aimed to document the measures of AT on Canada's various national health surveys, examine AT over time, and interpret them within the context of evolving methods of assessment.

Prioritizing a research agenda on built environments and physical activity: a twin panel Delphi consensus process with researchers and knowledge users.

Background: The growth of urban dwelling populations globally has led to rapid increases of research and policy initiatives addressing associations between the built environment and physical activity (PA). Given this rapid proliferation, it is important to identify priority areas and research questions for moving the field forward. The objective of this study was to identify and compare research priorities on the built environment and PA among researchers and knowledge users (e.

Strength-training and balance activities in Canada: historical trends and current prevalence.

Introduction: Muscle-strengthening and balance activities are associated with the prevention of illness and injury. Age-specific Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines include recommendations for muscle/bone-strengthening and balance activities. From 2000-2014, the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) included a module that assessed frequency in 22 physical activities.

How sedentary are Canadian adults? It depends on the measure.

Introduction: The new Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for Adults aged 18-64 years and Adults aged 65 years and older recommend that adults limit daily sedentary time to eight hours or less, including three hours or less of recreational screen time. The eight-hour recommendation was centred between the evidence from research using self-reported sitting time (threshold: seven hours or less per day) and accelerometer-measured sedentary time (threshold: nine hours or less per day). The purpose of this study is to compare the percentages of Canadians meeting three different sedentary thresholds (three hours or less per day of screen time, seven hours or less per day of self-reported sitting time and nine hours or less per day of accelerometer-measured sedentary time).

The influence of removing the 10-minute bout requirement on the demographic, behaviour and health profiles of Canadian adults who meet the physical activity recommendations.

Background: Recently, the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for Adults were released, and included a revised physical activity (PA) recommendation. The recommendation of 150 minutes per week of moderate-to-vigorous intensity PA (MVPA) was revised, from requiring that MVPA be accrued in bouts of 10 minutes or more (bouted) to having no bout requirement (non-bouted). The objective of this study was to assess whether there were differences in sociodemographic, health and fitness characteristics of Canadians who met the bouted and non-bouted PA recommendations.

Physical Activity, Sedentary Behavior, and Sleep on Twitter: Multicountry and Fully Labeled Public Data Set for Digital Public Health Surveillance Research.

Background: Advances in automated data processing and machine learning (ML) models, together with the unprecedented growth in the number of social media users who publicly share and discuss health-related information, have made public health surveillance (PHS) one of the long-lasting social media applications. However, the existing PHS systems feeding on social media data have not been widely deployed in national surveillance systems, which appears to stem from the lack of practitioners and the public's trust in social media data. More robust and reliable data sets over which supervised ML models can be trained and tested reliably is a significant step toward overcoming this hurdle.

Crowdsourcing for Machine Learning in Public Health Surveillance: Lessons Learned From Amazon Mechanical Turk.

Background: Crowdsourcing services, such as Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT), allow researchers to use the collective intelligence of a wide range of web users for labor-intensive tasks. As the manual verification of the quality of the collected results is difficult because of the large volume of data and the quick turnaround time of the process, many questions remain to be explored regarding the reliability of these resources for developing digital public health systems.

Objective: This study aims to explore and evaluate the application of crowdsourcing, generally, and AMT, specifically, for developing digital public health surveillance systems.

Gender and education differences in sedentary behaviour in Canada: an analysis of national cross-sectional surveys.

Background: Canadians spend the majority of their days sedentary. Gender and education are important social determinants of health that impact health behaviours. There is evidence that gender and educational differences in sedentary behaviour exist.

Sedentary behaviour surveillance in Canada: trends, challenges and lessons learned.

Background: Historical changes in the nature of sedentary activities have been observed in other countries, but it is not clear if similar trends exist in Canada. It is also unclear how changes in the measurement of sedentary behaviour affects national estimates. Our objective is to document all sources and measures of sedentary behaviour from Canadian, nationally representative surveys, and report on selected estimates of time spent in sedentary activities.

Developing content for national population health surveys: an example using a newly developed sedentary behaviour module.

Background: While physical (in) activity surveillance has grown and continues to grow globally, surveillance of sedentary behaviour is in its infancy. As surveillance evolves to meet the changing nature of these behaviours, there is a need for the development of national health survey questions to provide accurate and consistent measures over time. The development of national health survey content is a complex, detailed and often undocumented process.

At-a-glance - Conceptualizing a framework for the surveillance of physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep in Canada.

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has modernized its approach to physical activity surveillance by broadening its scope to include sedentary behaviour and sleep. The first step was to develop a conceptual framework which covers the full spectrum of physical movement from moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity (MVPA) and light intensity physical activity (LPA) to sedentary behaviour and sleep. The framework accounts for the environments in which these behaviours take place (home, work/school, transportation, and community), and applies a socioecological approach to incorporate individual factors and broader built, social, and societal environmental indicators.

Evidence synthesis - Where are children and adults physically active and sedentary? - a rapid review of location-based studies.

Introduction: Geographical positioning systems (GPS) have the capacity to provide further context around where physical activity (PA) and sedentary time (ST) are accrued especially when overlaid onto objectively measured movement. The objective of this rapid review was to summarize evidence from location-based studies which employed the simultaneous use of GPS and objective measures of PA and/or ST.

Methods: Six databases were searched to identify studies that employed the simultaneous use of GPS and objective measures of PA or ST to quantify location of movement.

Monitoring and evaluating school nutrition and physical activity policies.

Given the increase in the number of Canadian jurisdictions with school nutrition and/or physical activity policies, there is a need to assess the effectiveness of such policies. The objectives of this paper are to 1) provide an overview of key issues in monitoring and evaluating school nutrition and physical activity policies in Canada and 2) identify areas for further research needed to strengthen the evidence base and inform the development of effective approaches to monitoring and evaluation. Evaluation indicators, data sources and existing tools for evaluating nutrition and physical activity are reviewed.

By your own two feet: factors associated with active transportation in Canada.

Objective: The purpose of this study is to examine socio-demographic, geographic and physical activity correlates of walking and cycling for non-leisure purposes, i.e., to work, school, or errands, in Canada.