Access to Healthy Built and Natural Environments and Physical Activity and Screen Time in New Zealand Adolescents: A Geospatial Cross-Sectional Study.

The built and natural environment can facilitate (un)healthy behaviors in adolescence. However, most previous studies have focused on examining associations between singular aspects of the environment. This study examined the association between the mixture of health-promoting and health-constraining environmental features in a Healthy Location Index (HLI) and physical activity and screen time among adolescents.

Exploring the feasibility of linking historical air pollution data to the Christchurch Health and Development study: A birth cohort study in Aotearoa, New Zealand.

Spatial life course epidemiological approaches offer promise for prospectively examining the impacts of air pollution exposure on longer-term health outcomes, but existing research is limited. An essential aspect, often overlooked is the comprehensiveness of exposure data across the lifecourse. The primary objective was to meticulously reconstruct historical estimates of air pollution exposure to include prenatal exposure as well as annual exposure from birth to 10 years (1977-1987) for each cohort member.

Health-promoting and health-constraining environmental features and physical activity and sedentary behaviour in adolescence: a geospatial cross-sectional study.

The environment may be an important influence on adolescent behaviour. We combined accelerometry and global positioning system data to investigate how the environment was related to physical activity and sedentary behaviour. Adolescents spent most of their time in very close proximity to a range of both health-promoting and health-constraining features.

Transport changes and COVID-19: From present impacts to future possibilities.

Changes in people's movement and travel behaviour have been apparent in many places during the COVID-19 pandemic, with differences seen at a range of spatial scales. These changes, occurring as a result of the COVID-19 'natural experiment', have afforded us an opportunity to reimagine how we might move in our day-to-day travels, offering a hopeful glimpse of possibilities for future policy and planning around transport. The nature and scale of changes in movement and transport resulting from the pandemic have shown we can shift travel behaviour with strong policy responses, which is especially important in the concurrent climate change crisis.

Strengthening community connection and personal well-being through volunteering in New Zealand.

Volunteering is a way for people to develop meaningful relationships within a social group and can lead to the building of social capital, from which both individuals and the wider group can benefit in the form of enhanced well-being. This study aimed to explore and describe the impact of volunteering on the volunteer coordinators and volunteers themselves in the eastern suburbs of Christchurch, New Zealand, an area particularly impacted by the devastating earthquakes in the period 2010/2011. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews with volunteer coordinators and volunteers (n = 35; 16 men, 19 women) from November 2018 to mid-January 2019.