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Needs assessment of school and community physical activity opportunities in rural West Virginia: the McDowell CHOICES planning effort.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:McDowell CHOICES (Coordinated Health Opportunities Involving Communities, Environments, and Schools) Project is a county wide endeavor aimed at increasing opportunities for physical activity (PA) in McDowell County, West Virginia (WV). A comprehensive needs-assessment laid the foundation of the project. METHODS:During the 6 month needs assessment, multiple sources of data were collected in two Town Hall Meetings (n = 80); a student online PA interest survey (n = 465); a PA and nutrition survey among 5(th) (10-11 years) and 8(th) graders (13-14 years) with questions adapted from the CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey (n = 442, response rate = 82.2%); six semi-structured school and community focus groups (n = 44); school site visits (n = 11); and BMI screening (n = 550, response rate = 69.7%). RESULTS:One third of children in McDowell County meet the national PA minimum of 60 minutes daily. At least 40% of 5(th) and 8(th) graders engage in electronic screen activity for 3 hours or more every day. The prevalence of obesity in 5(th) graders is higher in McDowell County than the rest of WV (~55% vs. 47% respectively). SWOT analyses of focus group data suggest an overall interest in PA but also highlight a need for increase in structured PA opportunities. Focus group data also suggested that a central communication (e.g. internet-based) platform would be beneficial to advertise and boost participation both in current and future programs. Schools were commonly mentioned as potential facilities for public PA participation throughout the county, both with regards to access and convenience. School site visits suggest that schools need more equipment and resources for before, during, and after school programs. CONCLUSIONS:An overwhelming majority of participants in the McDowell CHOICES needs assessment were interested to participate in more PA programs throughout the county as well as to improve opportunities for the provision of such programs. Public schools were widely recognized as the hub of the communities and provide the best venue for PA promotion for both students and adult citizens, and can potentially serve as a platform for change in rural communities such as McDowell County.

SUBMITTER: Kristjansson AL

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4423593 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Needs assessment of school and community physical activity opportunities in rural West Virginia: the McDowell CHOICES planning effort.

Kristjansson Alfgeir L AL Elliott Eloise E Bulger Sean S Jones Emily E Taliaferro Andrea R AR Neal William W

BMC public health 20150403

<h4>Background</h4>McDowell CHOICES (Coordinated Health Opportunities Involving Communities, Environments, and Schools) Project is a county wide endeavor aimed at increasing opportunities for physical activity (PA) in McDowell County, West Virginia (WV). A comprehensive needs-assessment laid the foundation of the project.<h4>Methods</h4>During the 6 month needs assessment, multiple sources of data were collected in two Town Hall Meetings (n = 80); a student online PA interest survey (n = 465); a ...[more]

PMID: 25879471

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Project description:There has been considerable interest from the fields of biology, economics, psychology, and ecology about how decision costs decrease the value of rewarding outcomes. For example, formal descriptions of how reward value changes with increasing temporal delays allow for quantifying individual decision preferences, as in animal species populating different habitats, or normal and clinical human populations. Strikingly, it remains largely unclear how humans evaluate rewards when these are tied to energetic costs, despite the surge of interest in the neural basis of effort-guided decision-making and the prevalence of disorders showing a diminished willingness to exert effort (e.g., depression). One common assumption is that effort discounts reward in a similar way to delay. Here we challenge this assumption by formally comparing competing hypotheses about effort and delay discounting. We used a design specifically optimized to compare discounting behavior for both effort and delay over a wide range of decision costs (Experiment 1). We then additionally characterized the profile of effort discounting free of model assumptions (Experiment 2). Contrary to previous reports, in both experiments effort costs devalued reward in a manner opposite to delay, with small devaluations for lower efforts, and progressively larger devaluations for higher effort-levels (concave shape). Bayesian model comparison confirmed that delay-choices were best predicted by a hyperbolic model, with the largest reward devaluations occurring at shorter delays. In contrast, an altogether different relationship was observed for effort-choices, which were best described by a model of inverse sigmoidal shape that is initially concave. Our results provide a novel characterization of human effort discounting behavior and its first dissociation from delay discounting. This enables accurate modelling of cost-benefit decisions, a prerequisite for the investigation of the neural underpinnings of effort-guided choice and for understanding the deficits in clinical disorders characterized by behavioral inactivity.

Dataset Information

Needs assessment of school and community physical activity opportunities in rural West Virginia: the McDowell CHOICES planning effort.

Publications

Needs assessment of school and community physical activity opportunities in rural West Virginia: the McDowell CHOICES planning effort.

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