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Purpose: The spread of COVID-19 and the associated stay-at-home orders and shutdowns of gyms and fitness centers have drastically influenced health behaviors leading to widespread reductions in physical activity (PA). The recent Call to Action from the American College of Sports Medicine has promoted "innovative strategies to promote PA during the COVID-19 pandemic." We aimed to identify individual-level factors that protected against declines in PA levels amid the COVID-19 restrictions.
Methods: We used the Pennington Biomedical COVID-19 Health Behaviors Survey for our analyses and used mixed-effect linear and generalized linear models to estimate the effects of individual-level factors on changes in PA levels during the COVID-19 restrictions.
Results: Participants (n = 4376) provided information on PA behaviors before and during the COVID-19 shutdown. Overall, PA levels declined by a mean ± SD of 112 ± 1460 MET·min·wk-1 during the COVID-19 shutdown; however, changes in PA were heterogeneous, with 55% of the participants reporting increases in or maintenance of PA during that time. Several social and demographic factors were significantly related to declines in PA, including high prepandemic PA levels, living alone (difference = 118 MET·min·wk-1), low household income (difference between the highest and the lowest income group = 363 MET·min·wk-1), COVID-19-related changes in income (difference = 110 MET·min·wk-1), and loss of employment (difference = 168 MET·min·wk-1). The substitution of prepandemic gym attendance with the purchase and use of home exercise equipment or exercise through virtual fitness platforms promoted increases in PA during the COVID-19 shutdown.
Conclusions: While promoting PA through the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to consider demographic factors, which greatly influence health behaviors and implementation of, and access to, replacement behaviors. The promotion of such strategies could help maintain PA levels during potential future stay-at-home orders.
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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8205931 | PMC |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0000000000002602 | DOI Listing |
JMIR Res Protoc
September 2025
Department of Development & Environmental Studies, Palacký University Olomouc, Olomouc, Czech Republic.
Background: Children in low- and middle-income countries face obstacles to optimal language and cognitive development due to a variety of factors related to adverse socioeconomic conditions. One of these factors is compromised caregiver-child interactions and associated pressures on parenting. Early development interventions, such as dialogic book-sharing (DBS), address this variable, with evidence from both high-income countries and urban areas of low- and middle-income countries showing that such interventions enhance caregiver-child interaction and the associated benefits for child cognitive and socioemotional development.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJMIR Res Protoc
September 2025
Department of Health Services Research & Administration, College of Public Health, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, United States.
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View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Med Internet Res
September 2025
Institute of Hospital Management, Peking University Third Hospital, Beijing, China.
Background: Telemedicine is developing rapidly, presenting new opportunities and challenges for physicians and patients. Limited research has examined physicians' behavior during the process of adopting telemedicine and related factors.
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JMIR Res Protoc
September 2025
Gender and Women's Health Unit, Nossal Institute for Global Health, School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Carlton, Australia.
Background: Assisted vaginal birth is a lifesaving procedure where health workers use special devices to expedite birth vaginally when some complications emerge, such as due to prolonged labor. When the use of assisted vaginal birth is possible and appropriate, it provides benefits over cesarean section. These benefits include shorter recovery, reduced hospital stays, lower risks of complications, cost savings, and greater likelihood of vaginal birth in future pregnancies.
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