TWINStudy of Environment, Lifestyle Behaviors, and Health

描述（由申请人提供）：本研究的目的是确定人们日常生活、工作和娱乐的建筑环境如何影响他们的生活方式行为和健康。我们将地理空间数据管理和分析的先进方法与前沿技术，多传感器板（MSB）相结合，实时和空间地收集有关建筑环境和生活方式行为的客观信息。MSB是一种小型可穿戴设备，具有多种传感功能，包括加速度计、气压和位置，可以无线连接到支持WiFi的移动电话。利用GPS和WiFi信号监测室外和室内活动，获得高空间分辨率的数据。这款手机已经被改造成一种自动进食程序。我们将使用这一综合工具研究环境对生活方式行为和健康的影响，研究对象是社区为基础的成年同卵双胞胎样本，他们在一起长大，但现在分开生活。利用这些工具和方法，我们将创建一个独特而丰富的数据集，将相对于建筑环境中位置的实时和空间的严格的身体活动和饮食措施联系起来。这种方法将建立并扩展我们的知识，通过测量双胞胎个人居住地点（社区）内外连续时间和空间的生活方式行为。使用同卵双胞胎对照设计，我们将检查分开生活的同卵双胞胎，并确定在不受遗传和家族影响的情况下，家庭建筑环境如何影响步行和总体力活动水平。接下来，我们将实时测量和比较基于位置的活动和饮食事件，以调查双胞胎使用与活动和饮食相关的家庭建筑环境特征的频率。通过测量在家庭建筑环境中与在远端建筑环境（包括工作、交通和娱乐相关的环境）中发生的活动和进食事件的次数，我们将能够确定与家庭建筑环境特征的接近程度是否与它们的使用有关。最后，我们将通过将体重状况与身体活动水平和食物摄入量联系起来，来测量分开居住的双胞胎的建筑环境、生活方式行为和体重指数之间的关联，以确定体重指数是否通过这些行为与建筑环境相关。我们的科学方法将行为和社会科学的概念模型与生物、计算和物理测量结合在一起，进行遗传信息研究设计。这项工作为在未来的研究中使用现有的表型数据和生物样本（包括DNA）库奠定了关键的基础，以确定特定基因如何与环境相互作用以影响行为和健康。最终，我们独特的样本和科学方法将带来新的和重要的见解，将肥胖和慢性疾病的环境，行为和遗传方面联系起来。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of this research is to determine how the built environment in which individuals live, work, and play in on a daily basis influences their lifestyle behaviors and health. We couple advanced methods in geospatial data management and analysis with cutting-edge technology, the multisensor board (MSB), to gather objective information about the built environment and lifestyle behaviors in real time and space. The MSB is a small wearable device with multiple sensing capabilities, including accelerometry, barometric pressure, and location, connected wirelessly to a WiFi enabled mobile telephone. Outdoor and indoor activities are monitored using GPS and WiFi signals to obtain data with high spatial resolution. The mobile phone has been adapted for use as an automated food intake program. We will use this integrated tool in a study of environmental influences on lifestyle behaviors and health in a community-based sample of adult monozygotic twins who were reared together but now live apart. With these tools and methods, we will create a unique and rich dataset linking rigorous measures of physical activity and eating in real time and space relative to locations in the built environment. This approach will build upon and extend our knowledge by measuring lifestyle behaviors in continuous time and space within and beyond the individual residential locations (neighborhoods) of twins. Using a co-twin control design, we will examine monozygotic pairs who live apart and determine how the home built environment influences levels of both walking and total physical activity, free of genetic and familial influences. Next, we will measure and compare location-based activity and eating episodes in real-time to investigate how often the twins use features of their home built environment that are associated with activity and eating. By measuring how many activity and eating episodes occur in the home built environment versus in distal built environments, including work, transit, and recreation-related settings, we will be able to determine whether proximity to features of the home built environment are associated with their use. Finally, we will measure associations among the built environment, lifestyle behaviors, and body mass index in twins who live apart by linking weight status with physical activity levels and food intake to determine if body mass index is associated with the built environment through these behaviors. Our scientific approach integrates conceptual models from the behavioral and social sciences with biological, computational, and physical measures in a genetically informative research design. This effort lays the critical groundwork to use an existing repository of phenotypic data and biological samples, including DNA, in future research to determine how specific genes interact with the environment to influence behaviors and health. Ultimately, our unique sample and scientific methods will lead to new and important insights linking environmental, behavioral, and genetic aspects of obesity and chronic disease. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The goal of this research project is to determine how people interact with the built environment in which they live, work, and play in on a daily basis. We focus on the built environment because health in a population is a function of macro-level or big picture influences that affect the lives of all people, not just individuals. We measure behaviors such as physical activity and eating habits that are closely linked with energy balance and health under real world conditions using powerful new tools that may be used in the future in commercially available devices such as mobile telephones.