Search

Objectives: On January 1, 2020, the Government of Ontario passed a regulation banning vaping advertisements by retailers, apart from specialty shops. A motivation for this ban was to limit youth exposure to vaping advertisements. The primary goal of this research was to evaluate the impact of this ban on the number and density of vaping advertisements surrounding secondary schools. Additionally, we examined whether the number of vaping advertisements varied by school socio-demographic characteristics. Methods: This study used a pre-post design. Audits were conducted December 2019 (pre-ban) and again January to February 2020 (post-ban), to identify vaping advertisements within 800 m surrounding secondary schools (n= 18) in London, Ontario. Results: Prior to the ban, there were 266 vaping advertisements within 800 m of secondary schools. After the ban, this was reduced to 58, a 78.2% reduction. The mean number of vaping advertisements surrounding schools significantly decreased from 18.1 before the ban to 3.6 after the ban (p< 0.001). A significant positive correlation was found, prior to the ban, between the number of vaping advertisements surrounding schools and school-level residential instability (r= 0.42, p= 0.02). After the ban, no significant correlations were found between the number of vaping advertisements and school socio-demographic characteristics. Conclusion: The provincial ban of vaping advertisements in select retail settings significantly reduced the number of vaping advertisements in the areas surrounding secondary schools in London, Ontario. The ban also reduced socio-demographic inequities in youths’ potential exposure to marketing of vaping products. Continued monitoring of the geographic accessibility and promotion of vaping products is warranted.

Objective: The objective was to examine the influence of weather on moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and light physical activity (LPA) levels of children aged 8–14 years from rural communities, an understudied Canadian population. Methods: Children (n?=?90) from four communities in rural Northwestern Ontario participated in this study between September and December 2016. Children’s MVPA and LPA were measured using an Actical accelerometer and demographic data were gathered from surveys of children and their parents. Weather data were collected from the closest weather station. Cross-classified regression models were used to assess the relationship between weather and children’s MVPA and LPA. Results: Boys accumulated more MVPA than girls (b?=?26.38, p?<?0.01), children were more active on weekdays as compared with weekends (b?=?-?16.23, p?<?0.01), children were less active on days with precipitation (b?=?-?22.88, p?<?0.01), and higher temperature led to a significant increase in MVPA (b?=?1.33, p??<?0.01). As children aged, they accumulated less LPA (b?=?-?9.36, p?<?0.01) and children who perceived they had higher levels of physical functioning got more LPA (b?=?25.18, p?=0.02). Similar to MVPA, children had higher levels of LPA on weekdays (b?=?-?37.24, p?<?0.01) as compared to weekend days and children accumulated less LPA (b?=?-50.01, p?<?0.01) on days with rain. Conclusion: The study findings indicate that weather influences rural children’s MVPA and LPA. Future research is necessary to incorporate these findings into interventions to increase rural children’s overall PA levels and improve their overall health.

Intervention: This study examines the impact of London’s Healthy Kids Community Challenge (HKCC) ‘Water Does Wonders’ interventions, which combined water infrastructure and education programs. Research question: How effective were the HKCC interventions at increasing water and decreasing sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption among grade 4–8 children in London, Ontario? Methods: Non-randomized controlled trial. Children’s knowledge and beverage intake were measured before and after the interventions were implemented during the 2016–2017 school year. Children at intervention schools (n= 521) received education programs (Growing Chefs or UTRCA [Upper Thames River Conservation Authority]) and water bottle filling stations. Children at control schools (n= 410) received filling stations only. Multivariable linear mixed-model ANCOVAs were used to compare water and SSB consumption and knowledge across intervention groups, accounting for school-level clustering. Results: Children who received an education intervention and filling station compared with only a filling station consumed more water (β= 2.18 (95% CI − 1.87, 6.22) for Growing Chefs and β= 2.90 (95% CI − 0.23, 6.03) for UTRCA) and fewer SSBs (β= − 1.17 (95% CI − 3.83, 1.49) for Growing Chefs and β= − 2.56 (95% CI − 5.12, 0.001) for UTRCA) post-intervention, and had higher nutrition knowledge (β= 1.57 (95% CI − 1.68, 4.83) for Growing Chefs and β= 2.02 (95% CI − 0.35, 4.39) for UTRCA). These findings were not statistically significant. Conclusions: An intervention intended to promote healthy beverage consumption yielded effects in the expected direction; however, they were small and not statistically significant. This is likely because the educational interventions were not fully aligned with the goals of the ‘Water Does Wonders’ program, preventing them from evoking meaningful changes in dietary behaviours.

Active school travel (AST) can be a viable way to increase children's low levels of daily physical activity by promoting opportunities to walk and wheel. To promote AST in Canada, School Travel Plan (STP) programs have been implemented throughout the country. The STP program is a comprehensive 2-year intervention that is facilitated by a committee of community and school partners who implement education, encouragement, enforcement, and engineering initiatives at their school to support AST.

The purpose of this study was to explore individual-level socio-demographic factors and interpersonal-level factors related to social support, as well as the potential role of neighborhood and school environments that may influence the physical activity (PA) levels of children (ages 9–11). Child and parent questionnaires included individual and interpersonal factors, and PA behaviour. Home postal codes were used to determine the neighbourhood the child resides within, as well as their geographic accessibility to recreation opportunities. The models were assessed using a series of cross-classified random-intercept multi-level regression models as children’s PA may be affected by both the school they attend and the neighbourhood in which they live. In the unadjusted model, PA varied significantly across school environments (γ = 0.023; CI: 0.003–0.043), but not across neighbourhoods (γ = 0.007; CI: -0.008 to 0.021). Boys were found to be more active compared to girls (b = 0.183; CI: 0.092–0.275), while the level of PA was lower for children whose fathers achieved post-secondary education (b = - 0.197; CI: -0.376 to 0.018) than for those whose parents completed only high school. The addition of the individual-level correlates did not have a substantial effect on level 2 variances and the level 2 variance associated with school environment remained statistically significant. At the interpersonal level, children’s perception of parental support (b = 0.117; CI: 0.091–0.143) and peer support (b = 0.111; CI: 0.079–0.142) were positively related to PA. The level 2 variance for the school environment became statistically non-significant when the interpersonal factors were added to the model. At the environmental level, geographic accessibility did not have a significant association with PA and they did not significantly affect level 1 or 2 variance. As many children do not accrue sufficient levels of PA, identifying modifiable determinants is necessary to develop effective strategies to increase PA.

Purpose: To evaluate the uptake of ACT-i-Pass (G5AP), a physical activity (PA) intervention that provides free access to PA opportunities, and to understand the extent to which the intervention provides equitable access to children.Design: This study evaluates the differences in uptake (ie, enrollment) by comparing postal codes of registrants with the postal codes of all eligible children.Setting: Children were provided the opportunity to register for the G5AP during the 2014 to 2015 school year in London, Canada.Participants: The population of grade 5 students in London who registered for the G5AP (n = 1484) and did not register (n = 1589).Intervention: The G5AP offered grade 5 students free access to select PA facilities/programs during 2014 to 2015 school year.Measures: Measures included G5AP registration status, method of recruitment, distance between home and the nearest facility, and neighborhood socioeconomic status.Analysis: Getis-Ord Gi* and multilevel logistic regression were used to analyze these data.Results: There were significant differences in the uptake of the G5AP: residing in neighborhoods of high income (odds ratio [OR] = 1.062, P= .029) and high proportion of recent immigrants (OR = 1.036, P= .001) increased the likelihood of G5AP registration. Children who were recruited actively were significantly more likely to register for the G5AP (OR = 2.444, P< .001).Conclusion: To increase the uptake of a PA intervention, children need to be actively recruited. Interactive presentations provide children with increased access to information about both the program and its nuances that cannot be communicated as effectively through passive methods.

Results are presented from an in-depth survey of the rescheduling decision process as it occurs in day-to-day life. The multistage survey involved a preplanning interview, followed by a prompted-recall diary supported by the Global Positioning System. Subsequent comparison of preplans with executed schedules was done to identify schedule modifications, deletions, and more-impulsive additions automatically. An open-ended interview was then used to elicit the planning time horizon of rescheduling decisions, the impetus of a decision, the impact of a single decision on the rest of the schedule, and the process that subjects go through to make a decision. Responses were then compared with different sociodemographic and activity variables by using a cross-tabulation and chi-squared analysis to determine if any associations exist. Highlights of these results include the findings that adding and deleting activities requires more talking in person, that personal need is a common cause for adding shopping activities, and that the more people involved in a decision, the longer the duration of the added activity. Three conclusions can be made from these findings. First, far more rescheduling decisions and scheduling conflicts were identified compared with previous studies. Second, there were many more varied causes of rescheduling decisions beyond those typically captured in existing rescheduling conflict models. Finally, sociodemographics had little effect on aspects of rescheduling decisions compared with activity variables. Discussion of how such results relate to past conceptual frameworks is included.

This paper presents results from an in-depth survey method for capturing the content and attributes of peoples’ preplanned schedules. The focus is on preplanned daily activity and travel events, their typically observable attributes (event type, start and end time, location, and involved person), and the extent to which these attributes are specified and elaborated on. The survey started with an interviewer simply asking subjects to write down or discuss their schedule for the next 2 days in as much or as little detail as they knew. The interviewer subsequently probed for further details as needed. This method elicited considerable detail on decision hierarchies in the subjects’ own words. Overall, it was found that activity type is the most often preplanned activity attribute, followed by location, start time, involved persons, and end time. For trips, the mode type and start time are most often planned, followed by involved persons and end time. Additional analysis further confirms that the preplanning is an ongoing decision process, wherein tentative decisions on each attribute are often made and then revisited at some point closer to execution. The implications of these findings for model development and future survey design are discussed. In particular, the results imply that activity scheduling models should adopt a nested or continuous planning loop, wherein certain activity attribute decisions are made first but are followed by subsequent stages of refinement and elaboration.

This paper reviews key developments in the physical aspects of child psychiatric practice. It concentrates on the implications of increasing knowledge of the genetic bases of disorders, advances in understanding within the pervasive developmental disorders, and physical modalities of treatment.

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "Mali's Unlikely Democracy," by Robert Pringle in the Spring 2006 issue.