Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on active transportation among Canadian children: results from two national surveys
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Children’s active transportation (AT) and independent mobility (IM) are associated with higher physical activity. COVID-19 restrictions have drastically reduced opportunities for physical activity, but their effects on AT and IM remain unknown. Purpose: Using two national surveys of parents across Canada conducted by separate survey firms in October and December 2020, we examined changes in AT and IM since the COVID-19 pandemic. We assessed potential disparities in changes by gender, household income, and disability status. Methods: Survey 1 included 1,568 parents of 5- to 17-year-olds and Survey 2 included 2,291 parents of 7- to 12-year-olds. We assessed changes associated with COVID-19 retrospectively on 5-point scales ranging from a lot less to a lot more. Changes in IM were only assessed in survey 2. We summarized changes in AT and IM with descriptive statistics and examined disparities with linear regression models. Results: In surveys 1 and 2 respectively, 33.4 and 37.5% of parents reported a decline in AT, 48.9 and 48.4% reported no change, and 16.8 and 14.0% reported an increase. 32.8% of parents reported a decline in IM, 56.5% reported no change and 10.7% reported an increase. In both surveys, decreases in AT were significantly larger among children from households earning CAD$ 20,000-79,999 versus >$100,000 with no disparities related to gender or disabilities (p>0.05). We obtained similar results for IM in survey 2. Conclusions: These findings emphasize the need for public health authorities and policymakers to promote AT and IM as activities that can comply with physical distancing requirements. Funding: Study 1 was funded by Dalhousie University, the Province of Nova Scotia, and ParticipACTION. Study 2 was funded by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada (grant # G-19-0026216).
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.006 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.008 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".