Nearly 70 years of sleep, sedentary behaviour, physical activity, and time-use research has led to the recent development of time-use epidemiology. To conceptualise the emerging research field and ...provide a framework for its further development, this paper defines its position among the established branches of science, explains its main concepts and defines associated terms, recommends suitable data analysis methods, proposes a theoretical model for future research, and identifies key research questions. Time-use epidemiology is defined as the study of determinants, incidence, distributions, and effects of health-related time-use patterns in populations and of methods for preventing unhealthy time-use patterns and achieving the optimal distribution of time for population health. As a theoretical model for future studies, this paper proposes the Framework for Viable Integrative Research in Time-Use Epidemiology (VIRTUE framework), acknowledging the compositional nature of time-use data and incorporating research on: 1) methods in time-use epidemiology; 2) outcomes of health-related components of time use; 3) optimal time-use balance and its prevalence in populations; 4) determinants and correlates of health-related components of time use; and 5) effectiveness of time-use interventions. It is likely that in total more deaths worldwide can be attributed to unhealthy time use than to smoking or obesity, potentially making it the most relevant modifiable behavioural and lifestyle risk factor of our time. We hope that governments and leading health organisations will recognise enormous importance of healthy time use, and provide adequate support for future research in time-use epidemiology.
Abstract
Introduction
Sleep hygiene recommendations discourage eating close to bedtime, though published data on the impact are not consistent. Associations between eating or drinking, within 1-hour ...prior to bedtime, sleep duration and sleep fragmentation were examined in a nationally-representative sample.
Methods
Data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), administered to a nationally representative sample of n=201,151 US residents aged ≥15 years were utilized. In an annual phone interview, ATUS participants were asked to record their activities during a 24-hour period (04:00am to 04:00am on the interview day) and were randomly selected to report weekdays or weekend activities. The present analysis included data from 2003–2018 and restricted to weekday respondents (n=124,242). Reporting of eating/drinking activities within 1-hour prior to bedtime was considered as a dichotomous variable (yes/no). Sleep fragmentation was defined as any awakening during the primary sleep episode (yes/no). Linear and logistic regression models, adjusted for age, sex, cohabitation, education and employment, were used to examine associations between eating/drinking and sleep duration or sleep fragmentation.
Results
In this ATUS sample, 56% of respondents were female and the mean age was 45 years. Mean sleep duration was 8.02 (0.007) hours, and 6% of survey participants ate/drank within 1-hour prior to bedtime. Overall, eating/drinking within 1-hour prior to bedtime was associated with longer sleep duration (p<0.01). Women and men who ate/drank within 1-hour prior to bedtime, in comparison to those who did not, had 35 minutes and 26 minutes longer sleep duration (p- value<0.0001) Eating/drinking activities within 1-hour prior to bedtime were associated with 1.8 higher odds of fragmented sleep (p<0.001).
Conclusion
In this large population-based survey, weekday eating or drinking within 1-hour prior to bedtime was associated with sleep fragmentation and longer sleep duration. Causal pathways would be difficult to discern, though sleep fragmentation could lead to compensatory increases in sleep duration.
Support
None
Social practice theory (SPT) represents a growing body of research that takes the ‘doings and sayings’ (social practices) of everyday life as its core unit of enquiry. Time use surveys (TUS) ...represent a substantial source of micro‐data regarding how activities are performed across the 24‐h day. Given their apparent complementarities, we ask why TUS have not been utilised more extensively within SPT‐inspired research. We advance two contentions: (1) ontological tensions obscure the relevance of TUS data in addressing core SPT research questions, and (2) SPT concepts do not readily translate for application in TUS analysis. In response, we operationalise Schatzki's (2019) concepts of activity events and chains to explore types and forms of temporal activity connection. Using TUS data we examine three activity events: sleeping, reading, and eating. Two types of temporal activity connection (sequence and synchronisation) are identified, together with four forms of connectivity (degrees of uniformity/diversity, sequential directionality, time‐varying connections, and symmetrical/asymmetrical relationships). While practices cannot be reduced to activity connections, we argue that this analytical approach offers a systematic basis for examining the ways in which activities combine to underpin the organisation of social practices. Further analysis to compare activity connections across practices, between different groups of practitioners, and over time would offer a valuable resource to empirically examine claims regarding core processes of societal change. We further contend that SPT approaches offer insights for time use research by providing a framework capable of recognising that activities are dynamic and variable rather than homogeneous and stable categories.
Objective
This study examines the relationship between telecommuting and gender inequalities in parents' time use at home and on the job before and during the COVID‐19 pandemic.
Background
...Telecommuting is a potential strategy for addressing the competing demands of work and home and the gendered ways in which they play out. Limited evidence is mixed, however, on the implications of telecommuting for mothers' and fathers' time in paid and unpaid work. The massive increase in telecommuting due to COVID‐19 underscores the critical need to address this gap in the literature.
Method
Data from the 2003–2018 American Time Use Survey (N = 12,519) and the 2020 Current Population Survey (N = 83,676) were used to estimate the relationship between telecommuting and gender gaps in parents' time in paid and unpaid work before and during the pandemic. Matching and quasi‐experimental methods better approximate causal relationships than prior studies.
Results
Before the pandemic, telecommuting was associated with larger gender gaps in housework and work disruptions but smaller gender gaps in childcare, particularly among couples with two full‐time earners. During the pandemic, telecommuting mothers maintained paid work to a greater extent than mothers working on‐site, whereas fathers' work hours did not differ by work location.
Conclusion
In the context of weak institutional support for parenting, telecommuting may offer mothers a mechanism for maintaining work hours and reducing gender gaps in childcare, while exacerbating inequalities in housework and disruptions to paid work.
Two-way commuting: Asymmetries from time use surveys Giménez-Nadal, José Ignacio; Molina, José Alberto; Velilla, Jorge
Journal of transport geography,
July 2021, 2021-07-00, 20210701, Letnik:
95
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Daily commuting of workers is a complex phenomenon that has long attracted research attention and, despite the significant literature acknowledging differences between morning and evening commuting, ...commuting trips to and from work are considered symmetric in much of the prior research. We explore the asymmetries in time spent commuting to and from work, in seven countries, using detailed time use records from the Multinational Time Use Study (MTUS). We focus on the duration, mode of transport, and timing of commuting trips, and we provide evidence of the socio-demographic characteristics related to such asymmetries. We find that commutes to work (usually in the morning) last longer than commutes from work (usually in the afternoon or evening), although there are quantitative differences among countries. The timing of commuting also differs across countries, although commutes to work are more concentrated at certain hours in the morning than commutes from work. Our results may provide a better analysis of public policies, and open questions for future research, tackling the correlation between commuting behaviors and worker well-being, land use and city structure, and extreme commuting, among others.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the division of household labour could continue to lock down or start to break gender roles. Using time-use data of n = 473 individuals collected during the ...lockdown restrictions in Belgium from March to May 2020, we analyse the gendered division of routine and non-routine household labour in absolute time use and relative shares. We compare against the Belgian time-use data of 2013 for the same time period (n = 678 individuals). A time-demanding work and living situation associate with an increase in men’s time spent on household labour during the lockdown but not with a change in women’s time use. The gender gap closes in absolute time but not in relative shares of routine and non-routine household labour. The limited impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the gender division of household labour indicates a temporal rather than a substantial change in gender roles.
Objective
This study examines whether—and if so how—gender composition of children matters for mothers' and fathers' well‐being during parenting activities.
Background
Despite that parents interact ...with girls and boys differently and spend different amounts of time with them, scholars have paid little attention to how gender composition of children matters for parental well‐being.
Method
The study assessed parental well‐being during time spent with children, across four measures of subjective well‐being (N = 16,140 activities, 8,621 parents), pooled across three survey waves (2010, 2012, and 2013) from the American Time Use Survey Well‐being Module. Random intercept models were used to account for the multilevel structure of the data.
Results
For both mothers and fathers, gender composition of children was not associated with different levels of happiness or meaning while parenting. However, fathers reported greater stress parenting all girls and mixed‐gender children (i.e., girl/s and boy/s at the same time) compared to parenting all boys. Mothers reported greater fatigue and stress parenting all girls, compared to parenting all boys. Controlling for activity type explained some of the stress patterns.
Conclusion
This study, which is contextualized in broader literature on gender stereotypes, interactional processes, and time‐use, makes several contributions to research on gender, family, and health and identifies an important factor—gender composition of children—that helps shape mothers' and fathers' well‐being while parenting.
Abstract
Study Objectives
Bedtime procrastination (BP) is defined as going to bed later than intended despite absence of external reasons. This study investigated sleep and psychological factors ...associated with BP in young adults, and further compared how high and low BP groups spend their time over 24 h and also 3 h prior to bedtime using time use surveys.
Methods
Young adults (N = 106) from the community were classified as either high (n = 54) or low (n = 52) BP group based on the Bedtime Procrastination Scale. All participants were asked to complete questionnaires on insomnia, depression, anxiety, stress, and chronotype, in addition to keeping a 7-day sleep diary and completing time use surveys over 48 h.
Results
Participants were 61.3% female, mean age 22.7 (±2.89) years old. Individuals in the high BP group reported significantly more depression, anxiety, and insomnia, went to bed later, woke up later, and had more eveningness tendencies compared to the low BP group. Results from the time use surveys revealed that the high BP group spent significantly more time engaging in leisure and social activity with the majority of time spent using media over 24 h compared to the low BP group. Finally, the high BP group spent on average approximately 451% (or 61 min) more time per day on their smartphone 3 h prior to bedtime compared to the low BP group.
Conclusions
Our results suggest that BP is negatively associated with sleep and mood, and should be considered a serious health-interfering behavior.
Sleep, sedentary behaviour (SB), and physical activity are among key behavioural determinants of health. There is a need to evaluate questionnaires that capture movement behaviours across the full ...24-h day. The aim of this study was to examine the measurement properties of the Daily Activity Behaviours Questionnaire (DABQ), a novel questionnaire (with a past seven-day recall period) for estimating the time spent in sleep, SB, light physical activity (LPA), and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) among adults. A sample of 126 adults was recruited. DABQ was administered to the participants on two occasions seven days apart to examine its test-retest reliability. The convergent validity of DABQ estimates was explored against activPAL4 accelerometer/inclinometer estimates. Intraclass correlation coefficients for absolute agreement and consistency between the times spent in sleep, SB, LPA, and MVPA estimated by DABQ in the test and re-test ranged from 0.59 to 0.69. Spearman's correlations between the times spent in sleep, SB, LPA, and MVPA estimated by DABQ and activPAL4 ranged from 0.38 to 0.66. In terms of reliability and validity, DABQ is comparable with existing questionnaires; however, it has an important advantage of enabling a comprehensive assessment of all four 24-h movement behaviours. The measurement properties of DABQ make it suitable for large-scale epidemiological studies on 24-h movement behaviours.
Measurement of the time spent in sleep, sedentary behaviour, and physical activity across the full 24-h day (i.e. 24-h movement behaviours) is essential for time-use research among adolescents. ...However, self-reported questionnaires for the assessment of 24-h movement behaviours are scarce. The aim of this study was to examine the validity and reliability of recently developed Daily Activity Behaviours Questionnaire (DABQ) for the assessment of time spent in sleep, sedentary behaviour, light physical activity, and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity among adolescents. A convenience sample of 59 high-school students (34 female, age range: 15–18 years) was recruited. Participants were asked to complete a web-based DABQ at two occasions (two-weeks apart) to examine test-retest reliability of the DABQ, and to wear activPAL accelerometer to examine convergent validity of the DABQ. The test-retest reliability correlation coefficients (ICC) for the durations of sleep, sedentary behaviour, light physical activity, and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity were 0.49, 0.64, 0.51, and 0.66, respectively. Convergent validity correlation coefficients (Spearman’s ρ) were 0.51, 0.38, 0.25, and 0.53, respectively. Our findings are comparable with the reliability and validity of most existing sleep, sedentary behaviour, or physical activity questionnaires among adolescents. However, DABQ is one of the first validated questionnaires that resonates with the emerging 24-h movement paradigm. The observed reliability and validity are indicating satisfactory measurement properties of the DABQ to be used in time-use research among adolescents.
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