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Background The IPEN International Physical Activity and Environment Network Adolescent project was conducted using common study protocols to document the strength, shape, and generalizability of associations of perceived neighborhood environment attributes with adolescents’ physical activity and overweight/obesity using data from 15 countries. Countries did not use identical versions of the Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale for Youth (NEWS-Y) to measure perceived neighborhood environment attributes. Therefore, this study derived a measurement model for NEWS-Y items common to all IPEN Adolescent countries and developed a scoring protocol for the IPEN Adolescent version of the NEWS-Y (NEWS-Y-IPEN) that maximizes between-country comparability of responses. Additionally, this study examined between- and within-country variability, and construct validity of the NEWS-Y-IPEN subscales in relation to neighborhood-level socio-economic status and walkability. Methods Adolescents and one of their parents (N = 5714 dyads) were recruited from neighborhoods varying in walkability and socio-economic status. To measure perceived neighborhood environment, 14 countries administered the NEWS-Y to parents and one country to adolescents. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to derive comparable country-specific measurement models of the NEWS-Y-IPEN. Country-specific standard deviations quantified within-country variability in the NEWS-Y-IPEN subscales, while linear mixed models determined the percentage of subscale variance due to between-country differences. To examine the construct validity of NEWS-Y-IPEN subscales, we estimated their associations with the categorical measures of area-level walkability and socio-economic status. Results Final country-specific measurement models of the factor-analyzable NEWS-Y-IPEN items provided acceptable levels of fit to the data and shared the same factorial structure with five latent factors (Accessibility and walking facilities; Traffic safety; Pedestrian infrastructure and safety; Safety from crime; and Aesthetics). All subscales showed sufficient levels of within-country variability. Residential density had the highest level of between-country variability. Associations between NEWS-Y-IPEN subscales and area-level walkability and socio-economic status provided strong evidence of construct validity. Conclusions A robust measurement model and common scoring protocol of NEWS-Y for the IPEN Adolescent project (NEWS-Y-IPEN) were derived. The NEWS-Y-IPEN possesses good factorial and construct validity, and is able to capture between-country variability in perceived neighborhood environments. Future studies employing NEWS-Y-IPEN should use the proposed scoring protocol to facilitate cross-study comparisons and interpretation of findings.

The study was supported from European Regional Development Fund-Project “Effective Use of Social Research Studies for Practice” (No. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_025/0007294) and the Czech Science Foundation under reg. No. 18-24977S. Objectives: Associations between the perceived social and physical environment and self-reported moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and screen time (ST) were examined among adolescents in four European countries. Methods: Representative samples were surveyed with standardised methodologies. Associations between environmental variables and meeting MVPA recommendations and tertiles of ST were tested in gender-specific logistic regression models. Moderation by country and country-specific relationships were also examined. Results: The most consistent findings across countries were found for the significant associations between neighbourhood social environment and MVPA in both boys and girls. Significant associations with the physical environment varied more between countries and by gender. The most consistent negative associations with ST were found for the social environmental variable of having parental rules for spending time outside the home. Conclusions: The present findings provided evidence for the generalisability of the associations between environmental correlates and MVPA across four European countries. The findings show clear differences in correlates for MVPA and ST. Further research is needed to better understand the unique aspects of the social and physical environment which explain each of the two behaviours. Postprint

Introduction As indicated by the WHO, lifestyle plays a unique role in human health, which in turn is determined to a great extent by physical activity and nutrition. It must be borne in mind that physical activity should be systematic and regulated by an age-appropriate exercise intensity. All this indicates that learning about students' lifestyle, with a particular focus on physical activity is vital as it these young people who aspire to the role of the future elites. Objective The aim of the study is to evaluate the level of physical activity, nutrition- and silhouette-related behaviours of male and female students to assess the relationships between these variables in students from the Visegrad Group countries. Material and methods The study was conducted in 2015 and involved 2,497 students attending three undergraduate levels aged - x - 21,76, (SD-1,80) - 1,211 males (48.5%) and 1,286 females (51.5%). The IPAQ long-form and a questionnaire by the Polish Chief Sanitary Inspector were used. Results Physical activity was significantly higher in male than female students. An important relationship was observed among the larger number of consumed meals, level of physical activity, and silhouette-related behaviours in male students, which was not the case with females. However, there was an important correlation between physical activity in males and females who exercised to increase or decrease body weight (musculature), and took medications to increase body weight (musculature). Conclusions Both males and females showed pro-health attitudes related to the level of physical activity and nutrition- and silhouette-related behaviours.

The aim of this study was to extend the psychometric evaluation of the Short Self-Regulation Questionnaire (SSRQ) by assessing the factor structure across three countries from Central and Eastern Europe. The sample included 1809 students from Slovakia, Lithuania and Hungary. Based on an initial confirmative factor analysis, a 2-factor structure by Neal and Carey (2005) was confirmed in the Lithuanian sample. Next, exploratory factor analyses were used on the Slovak and Hungarian subsamples separately. For both national subsamples, a very similar four factor solution was found, which was confirmed by confirmatory factor analyses on the rest of the data. Despite the reduced number of items, the abridged scale did not suffer in terms of its internal reliability and thus provides an adequate approximation of self-regulation levels as the entire scale or as the scale with the proposed 4-factor solution.

To achieve a healthy lifestyle, adolescents must be physically active and meet physical activity (PA) guidelines. One of the most natural ways of increasing the amount of PA is active commuting (AC) to school. Recent reviews suggest that peer norms have the potential to shape PA during adolescence in particular. Thus, our primary aim was to investigate whether Czech adolescents misperceive their peers&rsquo, AC behaviors and attitudes towards AC. Our dataset comprised cross-sectional data on 1586 adolescents aged 11&ndash, 15 years. Basic descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, and correlation analyses were used to analyze the data. Regarding traveling to school, 68% of the Czech adolescents in this study are daily active commuters (walking, cycling, or riding a scooter or skateboard). Less than half of the respondents believed that most of their classmates were commuting to school actively almost daily. The students who believed that most of their classmates commuted to school actively had significantly higher chances of being regular active commuters themselves. The results showed that most of the Czech adolescents misperceived the AC norms of their peers. Thus, there could be potential in using a social norms approach aimed at increasing the level of AC in Czech adolescents through targeted interventions.

BACKGROUND: Many studies indicate that a substantial part of the student population drinks excessively, yet most European universities do not have an alcohol policy. In the absence of an alcohol guideline at universities and the easy access to alcohol sold at the student cafeteria, for instance, this has the potential to place students at risk of overconsumption, which has adverse health consequences.OBJECTIVES: Therefore, our study objectives were to explore and compare university students' experiences and attitudes toward alcohol policy on their campus using a qualitative approach.METHODS: 29 focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted among students from universities in five European countries: Belgium (4 FGDs), Denmark (6 FGDs), France (5 FGDs), Hungary (6 FGDs), and the Slovak Republic (8 FGDs), with a total number of 189 participants.RESULTS: Across the five European countries, students recognized that alcohol was a big problem on their campuses yet they knew very little, if any, about the rules concerning alcohol on their campus.CONCLUSIONS: Students will not support an on campus alcohol restriction and a policy should therefore focus on prevention initiatives.

The objective of the paper was to investigate the association between PA and general life satisfaction in adolescents, taking into account family affluence and selected psychological, family and school factors. The survey (2015) involved 4085 Polish lower-secondary school students. Life satisfaction was measured with the abridged Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (SLSS). Vigorous Physical Activity, self-esteem, family affluence, family relations and the perception of the school environment were considered as independent variables. Hierarchical and path models were applied. The mean SLSS score was M = 4.66 (SD = 2.23), and 36.9% of its variability was explained—mainly by self-esteem. The impact of PA on self-esteem became stronger when family affluence decreased, which led to the conclusion that material status may modify the impact of behavioural factors on the SLSS scores’ variability in adolescence.

Purpose. The aim of the study was to evaluate the physical activity level, nutritional behaviours, and body silhouette concern in 15-17-year-old boys and girls from Eastern European countries.Methods. The research, carried out in 2015, involved 2145 secondary school adolescents, including 877 boys and 1268 girls (mean = 16.5, SD = 2.0). The results of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) and Health Behaviours Questionnaire were analysed.Results. The questionnaire results allowed to conclude that boys were definitely more active than girls. A significant relationship between physical activity and the number of meals was found. Another significant relationship was observed between higher physical activity in boys who wanted to gain weight and in girls who wanted to lose weight.Conclusions. Both boys and girls have positive attitudes towards their health with regard to their level of physical activity, nutritional behaviours, and body silhouette concern. A significant relationship was found in the interrelationship among the features considered, with simultaneous gender differentiation.

OBJECTIVE: School is a place where students spend most of their daytime hours. Previous studies indicate that the class climate significantly affects students in both positive and negative ways. The aim of our study is to describe the trends in the psychosocial school environment based on four surveyed years in the Czech Republic.METHODS: The trends in perception of school were assessed by the standardised self-reported HBSC questionnaire from data collected in 2002, 2006, 2010, and 2014. The overall sample included 8,530 girls and 8,087 boys. Data was analysed separately by gender and three age categories 11, 13, and 15 years. Trends were calculated using descriptive categories and percentages. To identify factors influencing school likeness we used binominal logistic regression.RESULTS: Results showed that school satisfaction declines with age both in boys and girls in each of four surveyed periods. Students who do not feel a high level of support from the teacher are more prone to negative perceptions of school. School duties in both genders were perceived to be greater and more stressful in 2014 than in 2002.CONCLUSIONS: Interventions to support the perception of psychosocial school environment via the educational system should, therefore, take the aforementioned variation into account.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the article is to examine trends in tobacco consumption among the Czech school-age population.METHODS: For the analysis, data from the Czech Health Behaviour in School-aged Children project, conducted between 1994 and 2014 were used. Trends in tobacco smoking were determined separately for boys and girls, applying the binary logistic regression with survey period as an independent variable for the smoking status.RESULTS: The analysis showed that there have been significant changes in adolescent tobacco smoking for the recent 20 years. While the share of current school-aged smokers was continuously increasing since the mid-1990s, the trend reached its peak in the mid-2000s.CONCLUSION: In recent years, the prevalence of adolescent smokers has significantly declined in the Czech Republic. Despite this recent decline, adolescent smoking remains a major challenge for the national health policy.

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS) under contracts No. LG14042 and No. LG 14043. Background. The concept of social capital has been extensively used to explain the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and adolescent health and well-being. Much less is known about the specific mechanism through which social capital impacts the relationship. This paper investigates whether an individual’s perception of community social capital moderates or mediates the association between SES and life satisfaction. Methods. This study employs cross-sectional data from the 2009–2010 Czech Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children survey: a WHO Collaborative Cross-National Study (HBSC). A sample of 4425 adolescents from the 5th, 7th and 9th grade (94.5% school response rate, 87% student response) was used to perform multilevel analysis. Results. We found that pupils’ life satisfaction was positively related to both family affluence and perceived wealth. Moreover, we found the cognitive component of social capital to be positively associated with life satisfaction. Additionally, a significant interaction was found, such that the social gradient in life satisfaction was flattened when pupils reported high levels of perceived community social capital. Conclusions. The present findings suggest that community social capital acts as an unequal health resource for adolescents, but could potentially represent opportunities for public health policy to close the gap in socioeconomic disparities. Publisher PDF

Background: Overestimations of non-prescribed stimulant use of peers are well documented in the USA and have also been identified as predictive of personal stimulant consumption. This study aimed to examine whether overestimations of peer use and approval of the use are associated with personal use and attitude towards the use of non-prescribed stimulants among European university students. Method: The EU funded 'Social Norms Intervention for the prevention of Polydrug usE (SNIPE)' study was conducted in seven European countries. In a web-based questionnaire, 4482 students were asked about their personal use and their attitude towards non-prescribed stimulant use, as well as the perceived peer use and peer attitude. Results: 59% of students thought that the majority of their peers used non-prescribed stimulants more frequently than themselves, and only 4% thought that the use of the majority was lower than their personal use. The perception that the majority of peers had used non-prescribed stimulants at least once was significantly associated with higher odds for personal use of non-prescribed stimulants (OR: 3.30, 95% CI: 2.32–4.71). In addition, the perception that the majority of peers approved of the non-prescribed use of stimulants was associated with a 4.03 (95% CI: 3.35–4.84) times higher likelihood for personal approval. Discussion: European university students generally perceived the non-prescribed use of stimulants of peers to be higher than their personal use. This perception, as well as a perception of higher approval in the peer group, was associated with a higher likelihood of personal non-prescribed stimulant medication use and approval. The Social Norms for the prevention of Polydrug usE (SNIPE) project was funded by the European Commission (LS/2009-2010/DPIP/AG).

Objective: Perceptions of peer behavior and attitudes exert considerable social pressure on young adults to use substances. This study investigated whether European students perceive their peers’ cannabis use and approval of cannabis use to be higher than their own personal behaviors and attitudes, and whether estimations of peer use and attitudes are associated with personal use and attitudes. Method: University students (n = 4131) from Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom completed an online survey as part of the Social Norms Intervention for Polysubstance usE in students (SNIPE) project, a feasibility study of a web-based normative feedback intervention for substance use. The survey assessed students’ (1) personal substance use and attitudes, and (2) perceptions of their peers’ cannabis use (descriptive norms) and attitudes (injunctive norms). Results: Although most respondents (92%) did not personally use cannabis in the past two months, the majority of students thought that the majority of their peers were using cannabis and that their peers had more permissive attitudes towards cannabis than themselves. Controlling for students’ age, sex, study year and religious beliefs, perceived peer descriptive norms were associated with personal cannabis use (OR: 1.42; 95% CI: 1.22, 1.64) and perceived injunctive norms were associated with personal attitudes towards cannabis use (OR: 1.46; 95% CI: 1.09, 1.94). Conclusions: European students appear to possess similar discrepancies between personal and perceived peer norms for cannabis use and attitudes as found in North American students. Interventions which address such discrepancies may be effective in reducing cannabis use. Keywords: cannabis, social norms, student health, social influence

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to assess discrepancies between estimated peer and personal drinking behavior and to determine associations between perceptions of peer and personal drinking behavior among university students from Hungary (HU), Lithuania (LT), and the Slovak Republic (SK). Methods: 2,554 freshman university students completed an online questionnaire on the frequency of their personal alcohol use, the number of heavy drinking occasions and on their perception concerning the corresponding drinking behavior of a typical student. Associations between perceived peer and personal use were analyzed by means of logistic regression, adjusting for sex. Results: The majority of students across all countries thought their peers drink more frequently and are more often involved in heavy drinking occasions than themselves. Students who perceived the frequency of peer alcohol use to be higher were more likely to drink alcohol twice a week or more often (SR: OR = 3.81, 95% CI = 2.51–5.79; LT: OR = 3.16, 95% CI = 2.11–4.75; HU: OR = 2.10, 95% CI = 1.53–2.87) compared with students who drink alcohol monthly or less. Those who perceived the number of peer heavy drinking occasions as high were more likely to report heavy drinking weekly or more often (SR: OR = 3.16, 95% CI = 1.92–5.20; LT:OR = 3.56, 95% CI = 2.14–5.94; HU:OR = 1.41, 95% CI = 0.79–2.51) compared with students who report heavy drinking less than monthly. Conclusions/Importance: University students perceived peer alcohol use to be higher than their personal use. Given the association between perceptions and personal alcohol use, future research should investigate if targeting perceptions in the surveyed countries may have an impact on alcohol use.

Background: Countries in recession experience high unemployment rates and a decline in living conditions, which, it has been suggested, negatively influences their populations’ health. The present review examines the recent evidence of the possible association between economic recessions and mental health outcomes. Methods: Literature review of records identified through Medline, PsycINFO, SciELO, and EBSCO Host. Only original research papers, published between 2004 and 2014, peer-reviewed, non-qualitative research, and reporting on associations between economic factors and proxies of mental health were considered. Results: One-hundred-one papers met the inclusion criteria. The evidence was consistent that economic recessions and mediators such as unemployment, income decline, and unmanageable debts are significantly associated with poor mental wellbeing, increased rates of common mental disorders, substance-related disorders, and suicidal behaviours. Conclusion: On the basis of a thorough analysis of the selected investigations, we conclude that periods of economic recession are possibly associated with a higher prevalence of mental health problems, including common mental disorders, substance disorders, and ultimately suicidal behaviour. Most of the research is based on cross-sectional studies, which seriously limits causality inferences. Conclusions are summarised, taking into account international policy recommendations concerning the cost-effective measures that can possibly reduce the occurrence of negative mental health outcomes in populations during periods of economic recession., Frasquilho D. receives a grant from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), reference SFRH/BD/80846/2011. This paper was also supported by the ECOP project “Support for creating excellent research teams and intersectoral mobility at Palacký University in Olomouc” (reg. no. CZ.1.07/2.3.00/30.0004), and by the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport under contract no. LG 14043 and LG 14042. The authors wish to thank Dr. Sharon Leahy from the University of St. Andrews who assisted in the proof-reading of the manuscript.

Background: Examining the level of physical activity in students is a vital issue as these young people are the future social elite. Methods: The research was conducted in the years 2013&ndash, 2016 and comprised 5008 males and females, mean age of 20.5 &plusmn, 2.1 years, including 2237 (55.3%) students from students from Eastern European National University, Lutsk, and Ternopil State Medical University, Ukraine, as well as 2237 (44.7%) from the Visegrad countries, i.e., University of P&eacute, cs in Hungary, University in Kosice, Slovakia, University of Olomunec in the Czech Republic and the State School of Higher Education in Biała Podlaska, Poland. It applied a diagnostic survey&mdash, the extended version of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ), supplemented with original questions regarding body weight, height, self-assessment of physical fitness and amount of leisure time. Results: The comparison of students&rsquo, PA from selected European countries, members of the Visegrad group and Ukraine, is particularly vital to the latter country as it demonstrates a different level of socio-economic development. There was noted a significantly higher level of physical activity in students from the Visegrad countries than in Ukraine. Further, there was an overall lower level of physical activity in females compared to males. What was positive about the studied samples was a healthy BMI index in the majority of the male and female respondents, with a significantly higher indicator in Ukraine. Conclusions: Among the factors significantly affecting higher physical activity in both researched samples were the BMI and high self-assessment of physical fitness. There was no significant variation in the level of physical activity and the amount of leisure time, both in those studying in the Visegrad states and Ukraine.