Purpose:
In the present study, the authors extend previous cross-sectional findings by using a prospective design to determine whether physical and social environmental characteristics predict ...physical activity over 6 months.
Design:
Inactive adults were recruited to the Activity Counseling Trial, a multicenter, randomized, controlled trial of physical activity intervention in primary care. Participants were 387 women and 474 men aged 35-75 years in 3 regions; 1/3 were minorities; 56% had some college education. Baseline perceived environmental variables were used to predict physical activity at 6 months, adjusting for experimental condition and other potential moderators.
Measures:
The validated 7-day physical activity recall interview was used to estimate minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity. A standardized survey was used to measure social and physical environmental variables around the home and neighborhood.
Results:
Women reporting no unattended dogs and low crime in their neighborhoods and men reporting frequently seeing people being active in their neighborhoods did 50-75 more minutes of physical activity per week than did those with different environmental characteristics. Interactions of environmental variables with age group suggested that older adults may be more affected by environmental variables than are younger adults.
Conclusions:
Self-reported social and physical environmental variables were significantly related to moderate to vigorous physical activity among a diverse sample of adults living in 3 regions of the United States. These prospective findings strengthen the conclusion from previous cross-sectional studies that environmental variables are important correlates of physical activity.
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Woolly monkeys are threatened and reintroduction projects are an alternative for their conservation. However, there is little quantitative information suggesting the habitat traits needed to sustain ...populations. In this study, we first analyze the factors determining the abundance of woolly monkeys (Lagothrix spp.) and second, we suggest the minimum amount of fruit production able to maintain a population. Data was obtained from a literature review including 50 Neotropical sites, and we added new information from three more sites recently gathered in Colombian forests. We used simple and logistic regression models on two scales: large (i.e. all Neotropical sites), and medium (i.e. sites within their geographic range). On the large spatial scale, the abundance of woolly monkeys was positively related with annual rainfall, and plant species richness; and negatively associated with the number of dry months. On medium scales, we found that the most important variables explaining the abundance of woolly monkeys across scales was fruit production. The regression models suggest that at least 200–300 kg/ha.yr are necessary to support a population of woolly monkeys, and according to a logistic regression 400 kg/ha.yr are needed so surpass the 0.5 chance to have a population. In reintroduction projects, since it is difficult for new occupants to efficiently use the natural resources, we suggest that this amount of fruit should be aimed. As fruit production seems to be associated with high soil fertility (e.g. close to the Andean mountains), this region should be priority for conservation projects on this species.
The layperson's view associates aging with
biological and cognitive losses, which could be associated with decrements in
work productivity and overall contributions to society. In turn, ecological
...approaches to life span development suggest that successful performance can
result from an adaptive employment of an individual's physical,
cognitive, or social capital in the appropriate environment. This ecological
framework suggests that one must understand the demands of particular ecologies
(i.e., niches) to predict whether aging is associated with failure, maintenance,
or even improvements in performance. We provide examples that illustrate the
importance of an ecological approach to understanding adaptation to challenging
decision tasks both in the laboratory and in the wild. Overall, we propose that
there are specific strategies and niches that can help older adults thrive and
that more work is needed to understand the exact characteristics that lead to
good performance in old age.
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Despite ample research demonstrating the role of motivation and self-efficacy in predicting drinking in the context of abstinence, little research explicitly explores their role in the context of ...moderation, and none have utilized daily diary methods. The purpose of this study was to (a) explore the concordance between global self-report and daily diary composite measures of motivation and self-efficacy and (b) compare the ability of each in predicting drinking outcomes in the context of a study of brief AUD treatments focused on controlled drinking. Problem drinkers (N = 89) were assessed, provided feedback about their drinking, and randomly assigned to one of three conditions: two brief AUD treatments or a third group asked to change on their own. Global self-report (GSR) measures were administered at baseline and Week 8 (end of treatment). Daily diary composites (DDC) were created from data collected via an Interactive Voice Recording system during the week prior to baseline and the week prior to Week 8. Findings revealed some concordance between GSR and DDC at both baseline and Week 8, indicating the two methods capture some of the same construct; however, their respective relationships to drinking differed. DDC for both baseline and Week 8 significantly predicted Week 8 drinking outcomes, whereas only change in GSR significantly predicted drinking outcomes. Findings suggest that motivation and self-efficacy are important to moderated drinking, and that both GSR and daily diary methods are useful in understanding mechanisms of change in the context of moderation. Daily diary methods may provide significant advantages. Limitations and arenas for future research are discussed.
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ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND
Despite the environment being recognized as playing an important role in health, little is known about the influence of school and community factors on student health. This study ...aimed to identify the ecological factors influencing obesity among middle school students, including intrapersonal, interpersonal, school, and community factors.
METHODS
The study sample consisted of 2069 students from 50 middle schools, with individual‐level data. School and community‐level data were collected using a school nurse survey and official materials from the National and Civic Statistics. These data were merged and used for a series of multilevel logistic regression analyses.
RESULTS
There were significant variations in the students' overweight/obesity status, by ecological factors. Individual dietary habits, peer social support for physical activity, health education in the regular curriculum, the number of personal computer rooms per 100,000 individuals, and the area of public sports facilities per 100,000 individuals were significantly associated with student obesity.
CONCLUSIONS
To be more effective, overweight/obesity prevention efforts for middle school students should focus not only on individual factors, but also on school and community factors.
Based on data on diet and microhabitat use, we investigated the importance of current (ecological) and historical factors (phylogenetic) in the organization of an anuran assemblage in temporary ponds ...in a Caatinga area in Northeastern Brazil. The objective of this study was to verify how diet and microhabitat use influence the community structure, and their determinants. Niche breadth based on microhabitat use was relatively low for all species; thus, we also observed a spatial segregation between Hylidae and other families. The closely related species exhibit a more similar diet; the main prey categories used by Caatinga anurans were Coleoptera, insect larvae and Formicidae. The pseudo-community analysis based on diet and microhabitat use revealed that the observed niche overlap did not differ statistically from random, indicating a lack of detectable competition for these resources. The Canonical Phylogenetic Ordination (CPO) analyses revealed no significant phylogenetic effect on the assemblage, neither for diet nor for microhabitat use. Results suggest that predation and hydroperiod may be the most important factors in determining assemblage patterns, but more studies are needed to support this hypothesis.
Controversial theories have been advanced (e.g., Rushton, 1985, 2000) relating "race" to human life history strategy: (a) different human populations ("races") evolved in different physical and ...community ecologies; (b) these ecologies should at least partially determine the selective pressures shaping the evolution of human life history strategies in different parts of the world; ergo (c) different human populations ("races") should be associated with different modal life history strategies. Although the argument seems plausible in its stark logical form, there were several limitations in operationalization: (a) the traditional "Big Three Races" used (Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid) do not correspond very closely to the five or six major population clusters identified by modern human genetics; (b) these "races" are neither discrete nor mutually exclusive, having many zones of overlap and interbreeding, making geographical boundaries fuzzy and imprecise; (c) fixing the "race" issue will still not directly address the fundamental premise of the theory that human life history strategy is largely determined by ecological factors. We therefore divided a sample of 141 national polities into zoogeographical regions instead of conventionally defined "races." We only used regions for this analysis that were still inhabited mostly by the aboriginal populations that existed there prior to the 15th century AD. Although obtained by different procedures than those used originally by Rushton, these produced results that were surprisingly convergent with the basic premise underlying the original hypotheses.
Public Significance Statement
This study found that zoogeographic regions explain much of the observed diversity among national polities in several basic dimensions of the physical and community ecology as well as in human life history strategies.
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The authors' purpose was to examine the degree to which low achievement is related to ontogenetic factors (i.e., personal psychological traits expressed as attention and depression) or microsystemic ...factors (i.e., socioeconomic status, parenting, relationship with peers and teachers), using a total of 721 middle school students in South Korea. Based on the percentile rank, low-achieving students (bottom 15%; n = 323) and high-achieving students (top 15%; n = 398) were grouped, and a multigroup structural equation modeling was employed to determine which ecological factor(s) contribute to predict low achievement of middle school students. Results from multigroup structural equation modeling showed that 3 of the 6 ecological and ontological factors had significant direct or indirect effect on low achievement: socioeconomic status (direct effect), attention (direct effect), parenting (indirect effect). The findings are discussed in terms of the intertwined influences of ecological factors on low achievement, finally leading to the discussion on the limitations and future directions for research.
An understanding of the relationships among multiple ecosystem services (ES) facilitates ecosystem management and decision-making. The study of ES bundles can well explain the complex interactions ...between different ES in a region. Shenyang is a significant economic development and food production area in Northeast China, with a diverse range of ES types. In this study, we quantified eleven ES from Shenyang, China (two provisioning services, eight regulating services, and one cultural service). The trade-offs and synergies among ES were analyzed by Spearman’s correlation analysis. The ES bundles were identified using principal component analysis and k-means cluster analysis. Finally, the random forest method was employed to identify the driving factors affecting the ES bundles. The results showed: (1) all ES in Shenyang improved between 2000 and 2019; (2) the most obvious trade-off was found between sand fixation and water conservation; (3) the ES in the study region could be clustered into five different ES bundles which were primarily affected by land-use type; and (4) social-ecological factors largely explained and predicted the formation and distribution of ES bundles. The study provides reference information for the management and optimization of Shenyang’s ecosystems and land use regulation.
Motor vehicle safety and tobacco control are among the greatest public health achievements of the 20th century, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As the number of miles ...traveled in the United States multiplied 10 times from the 1920s to the 1990s, the annual motor vehicle crash death rate per vehicle mile traveled decreased by 90%. Similarly, tobacco-related deaths from heart disease, stroke, and cancer were rapidly mounting over the first two thirds of the 20th century. Then, in the last third of the century, tobacco consumption decreased by more than 50%, and rates of heart disease and stroke deaths, and later cancer deaths, declined similarly. This analysis addresses the central question of what lessons can be learned from these success stories that will help public health professionals successfully tackle new and emerging health behavior problems of today and tomorrow? Surveillance, research, multilevel interventions, environmental modifications, and strong policies were key to reducing motor vehicle- and tobacco-related health problems. Generating public support and advocacy, and changing social norms also played critical roles in promoting the safer and smoke-free behaviors. Lessons learned include the need for evidence-based practices and interventions that are ecologically comprehensive with an emphasis on changing environmental determinants and capitalizing on the concept of reciprocal determinism. The analysis concludes with a description of how the PRECEDE-PROCEED planning framework can be used to apply the lessons from motor vehicle safety and tobacco control to other public health threats.
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