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Introduction: Interventions to promote physical activity in children should be informed by knowledge of the factors that influence physical activity behavior during critical developmental transitions. The purpose of this study is to identify, from a comprehensive, multidomain set of factors, those that are associated with change in objectively measured physical activity in children as they transition from elementary to middle school., Methods: The study used a prospective cohort design, with children observed in fifth, sixth, and seventh grades. Growth curve analyses were used to examine associations between exposure variables measured at baseline and children's physical activity across three observations. A total of 828 children, aged 10.6 (SD=0.5) years at baseline provided physical activity data in fifth grade and at one or both follow-ups. Exposure variables assessed child characteristics, parent characteristics, home characteristics, social factors, school environment, and community characteristics. Physical activity was measured via accelerometry. Data were collected in two school districts in South Carolina in 2010-2013 and analyzed in 2017., Results: Variables measured within the child, parent/home, and community domains were positively associated with children's physical activity as they transitioned from fifth to seventh grade. These included parent encouragement of physical activity, parental support for physical activity, child sports participation, parent's report of the child's physical activity level, the child's time spent outdoors, social spaces for physical activity in the community, and the number of physical activity facilities that were proximal to the child's home., Conclusions: Interventions designed to increase children's physical activity should include strategies that target multiple domains of influence., (Copyright © 2018 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The risk of obesity is reduced when youth engage in recommended levels of physical activity (PA). For that reason, public health organizations in the U.S. have encouraged communities to implement programs and policies designed to increase PA in youth, and many communities have taken on that challenge. However, the long-term effects of those programs and policies on obesity are largely unknown. The Healthy Communities Study is a large-scale observational study of U.S. communities that is examining the characteristics of programs and policies designed to promote healthy behaviors (e.g., increase PA and improve diet) and determining their association with obesity-related outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to describe the methods used to measure PA in children and the personal and community factors that may influence it. The study used both self-reported and objective measures of PA, and measured personal, family, and home influences on PA via three constructs: (1) PA self-schema; (2) parental support; and (3) parental rules regarding PA. Neighborhood and community factors related to PA were assessed using three measures: (1) child perceptions of the neighborhood environment; (2) availability of PA equipment; and (3) attributes of the child's street segment via direct observation. School influences on children's PA were assessed via three constructs: (1) school PA policies; (2) child perceptions of the school PA environment; and (3) school outdoor PA environment. These measures will enable examination of the associations between characteristics of community PA programs and policies and obesity-related outcomes in children and youth., (Copyright © 2015 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. All rights reserved.)

The Healthy Communities Study is one of the largest studies to assess the relationship between characteristics of community programs and policies to prevent childhood obesity and obesity-related outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to describe the protocol that was developed for collecting the anthropometric data for the study and the procedures for analyzing the data. Data were collected from 2013 to 2015 and analyses will be completed by mid-2016. During in-home visits, Healthy Communities Study staff collected height, weight, and waist circumference measurements from child participants and height and weight measurements from adult participants. The protocol for obtaining these measurements was adapted from the protocol used by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, with modifications to accommodate assessments conducted in homes rather than in a Mobile Examination Center. In addition to anthropometric data from in-home visits, the Healthy Communities Study collected retrospective height and weight measurements from the medical records of child participants. These data were used to calculate trajectories of BMI and BMI z-scores. The study implemented procedures for ensuring the accuracy of the in-home measurements and abstracted medical data. These procedures included automatically checking the ranges on entered data, reviewing data for end-digit patterns, and abstracting selected medical records using two independent abstractors to assess agreement. The collection of longitudinal height and weight measures will allow researchers to address several pressing questions related to how characteristics of community programs and policies are associated with obesity-related outcomes among children., (Copyright © 2015 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. All rights reserved.)