Is the Built Environment Associated with Youth Physical Activity and Weight?

Dr. Slater plans to study how the built environment and related policies influence adolescent physical activity and ultimately overweight and obesity. She will do this by drawing upon multiple theories and analytic techniques rather than limiting her research to only one discipline, while also seeking a permanent academic position in either the field of urban planning or public health. She plans to conduct this research at the UIC Institute for Health Research and Policy (IHRP). The work at IHRP spans social and behavioral health research, from basic science (including methods and theory development) and intervention development, to clinical and efficacy trials, research-to-practice and practice-to-policy translation, and dissemination. Under the mentored phase, she will complete two analyses using existing data that study the association between youth active travel, physical activity, overweight and obesity and a variety of built environmental measures. The results of these analyses will then be used to inform and guide the development of a pilot project for the independent scientist phase of this award. In addition, both the mentored and independent research plans will allow for the utilization of multi-disciplinary analytic skills and techniques to be acquired in the mentored phase of this award. For the independent phase, Dr. Slater proposes to develop and initiate a pilot project to examine the importance of school and community physical activity settings and opportunities on youth physical activity levels, overweight and obesity. The proposed study will combine detailed individual and parental survey data of Kindergarten, 3rd grade, and 5th grade students with community-level built environmental and related policy data, and school-level measures. The intent of the study is to examine the direct impact of individual and contextual factors on measures of BMI and overweight status, as well as their indirect influence on these outcomes via their effect on intermediary behaviors related to physical activity behaviors. The results of the pilot will then inform a larger RO1 application. The results from a large-scale empirical study could then inform community-based interventions to reduce adolescent obesity.