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

不良的饮食和身体活动（PA）行为会增加肥胖、癌症和其他慢性疾病的风险， 并造成差异。中年是一个脆弱的生命阶段，肥胖率达到顶峰， 出现。邻里环境提供了机会，障碍和线索/触发器，以从事健康或 不健康的行为然而，总的来说，关于环境行为协会的研究结果是 不一致且效应量小。本研究局限于仅关注居民区， 未能考虑环境在人的日常和瞬间行为差异中的作用，以及 很少注意确定环境对谁重要以及在什么条件下重要。一种新的方法 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 拟议的研究是为了解决在先前的研究中普遍存在的环境暴露的错误描述， 为人与人之间和人与人之间的饮食和PA的活动空间环境解释提供了一个明确的测试 中年时期的变化。核心假设是，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与人之间的变化， 比单独的居住区环境行为。根据时间自我调节理论， 我们还假设活动空间环境暴露对饮食和PA更重要， 自我调节能力-影响一个人努力调节的能力的特质或状态因素 的行为，减少。对510名拉丁裔、非裔美国人和白色成年人进行了一项深入、严格的研究， 40-64建议。我们将使用一个丰富的结合尖端的地理明确的生态瞬间 全球定位系统（GPS）定位跟踪;基于智能手机的 饮食、PA和状态因素的小型调查;加速度计，以及三次24小时饮食回忆， 人体测量，问卷调查的特点和其他因素。复杂的日常工作， 瞬时活动空间测量将根据其运动的空间范围得出，但也 暴露的持续时间。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物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。第一次，这种创新 研究将采用动态环境暴露方法，使用GEMA提供有关 环境在人与人之间和人与人之间的饮食和PA变化中的作用在中年，一个关键的时间，在一个 种族/民族多样化的样本。因此，它将有助于在环境保护方面实现急需的转变。 研究行为的决定因素，对该领域产生持久的影响。我们的研究意义重大，因为 研究结果可以为生活方式和基于场所的干预措施提供新的目标，以改善中年健康状况 并为更好的晚年健康奠定基础。

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.