A Dynamic Environmental Exposure Approach to Study Behaviors in Mid-Life

不良的饮食和体力活动（PA）行为会增加患肥胖症、癌症和其他慢性病的风险， 并造成不平等。中年是肥胖率达到顶峰和患有慢性疾病的脆弱生命阶段 出现。邻里环境提供了参与健康或健康活动的机会、障碍和线索/触发点。 不健康的行为。然而，总体而言，关于环境与行为关联的研究结果是 不一致且效应量较小。这项研究仅限于仅关注住宅区， 未能考虑环境在人体内日常和瞬间行为差异中的作用，以及 很少关注确定环境对谁以及在什么条件下很重要。一种新方法 需要考虑人们花费时间的更广泛的环境（活动空间）。我们的目标是 拟议的研究旨在解决先前研究中普遍存在的环境暴露的错误描述 为人与人之间的饮食和 PA 提供活动空间环境解释的明确测试 中年时期的变化。中心假设是活动空间环境暴露有助于 饮食和 PA 行为的人与人之间和人内部的差异，并对这些产生更强烈的影响 行为比单独的住宅区环境更重要。借鉴时间自我调节理论， 我们还假设，当以下情况时，活动空间环境暴露对饮食和 PA 的影响更大： 自我监管能力——影响一个人努力监管的能力的特质或状态因素 行为——减少了。对 510 名拉丁裔、非裔美国人和白人成年人进行深入、严格的研究 建议采用40-64。我们将采用丰富的前沿地理生态瞬间组合 评估（GEMA）方法：全球定位系统（GPS）位置跟踪；基于智能手机 饮食、PA 和状态因素的小型调查；和加速度测量，以及三个 24 小时饮食回忆， 人体测量、特质和其他因素的问卷调查。复杂的日常、日常和 瞬时活动空间测量将根据其运动的空间范围得出，但也 暴露时间。将测量住宅和活动空间环境的多个特征 使用 GIS，包括健康和不健康食品的绝对和相对可用性、步行性、娱乐性 资源可用性（例如公园、健身设施、绿化）和犯罪。这是第一次，这种创新 研究将采用动态环境暴露方法，利用 GEMA 提供证据 中年时期是一个关键时期，环境在人与人之间以及人与人之间饮食和体力活动的变化中所扮演的角色 种族/民族多样化的样本。因此，它将有助于环境方面急需的转变 研究行为的决定因素，对该领域产生持久影响。我们的研究意义重大，因为 结果可以为生活方式和基于地点的干预措施的新目标提供信息，以改善中年期间的健康 并为以后更好的健康奠定基础。

Poor dietary and physical activity (PA) behaviors escalate risk for obesity, cancer, and other chronic diseases, and contribute to disparities. Mid-life is a vulnerable life stage when obesity rates peak and chronic diseases emerge. Neighborhood environments provide opportunities, barriers, and cues/triggers to engage in healthy or unhealthy behaviors. Overall, however, research findings on environment-behavior associations are inconsistent and effect sizes are small. This research is limited by sole focus on residential neighborhoods, failure to consider the environment’s role in within-person daily and momentary differences in behaviors, and scarce attention to identifying for whom the environment matters and under what conditions. A new approach is needed that considers the broader environment where people spend time (activity space). Our objective in the proposed study is to address misspecification of environmental exposures ubiquitous in prior research and provide a definitive test of activity-space environment explanations for between-and within-person diet and PA variations during mid-life. The central hypotheses are that activity-space environmental exposures contribute to both between- and within-person variations in dietary and PA behaviors and more strongly influence these behaviors than residential-neighborhood environments alone. Drawing on Temporal Self-Regulation Theory, we also hypothesize activity-space environmental exposures are more consequential for diet and PA when self-regulatory capacity—trait or state factors that affect a person’s ability to make efforts to regulate behavior—is diminished. An in-depth, rigorous study of 510 Latinx, African American, and White adults ages 40-64 is proposed. We will use a rich combination of cutting-edge geographically-explicit ecological momentary assessment (GEMA) methodologies: global positioning system (GPS) location tracking; smartphone-based mini-surveys of diet, PA, and state factors; and accelerometry, as well as three 24-hour dietary recalls, anthropometric measurements, and questionnaires of trait and other factors. Sophisticated routine, daily, and momentary activity-space measures will be derived based on the spatial extent of their movement, but also duration of exposure. Multiple features of the residential and activity-space environments will be measured using GIS including absolute and relative availability of healthful and unhealthful foods, walkability, recreational resource availability (e.g., parks, fitness facilities, greenness), and crime. For the first time, this innovative research will employ a dynamic environmental exposure approach using GEMA to supply evidence on the environment’s role in between- and within-person variations in diet and PA during mid-life, a pivotal time, in a racially/ethnically diverse sample. As such it will contribute to a much-needed shift in how environmental determinants of behaviors are studied, making a lasting impact on the field. Our research is significant because the results can inform new targets for lifestyle and place-based interventions to improve health during mid-life and set the stage for better later-life health.