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Active buildings protocol [BMJ Open].pdf (1.01 MB)

Active buildings: modelling physical activity and movement in office buildings. An observational study protocol

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posted on 2015-10-29, 14:19 authored by Lee Smith, Marcella Ucci, Alexi Marmot, Richard Spinney, Marek Laskowski, Alexi Sawyer, Marina Konstantatou, Mark Hamer, Gareth Ambler, Jane Wardle, Abigail Fisher
Introduction: Health benefits of regular participation in physical activity are well documented but population levels are low. Office layout, and in particular the number and location of office building destinations (eg, print and meeting rooms), may influence both walking time and characteristics of sitting time. No research to date has focused on the role that the layout of the indoor office environment plays in facilitating or inhibiting step counts and characteristics of sitting time. The primary aim of this study was to investigate associations between office layout and physical activity, as well as sitting time using objective measures. Methods and analysis Active buildings is a unique collaboration between public health, built environment and computer science researchers. The study involves objective monitoring complemented by a larger questionnaire arm. UK office buildings will be selected based on a variety of features, including office floor area and number of occupants. Questionnaires will include items on standard demographics, well-being, physical activity behaviour and putative socioecological correlates of workplace physical activity. Based on survey responses, approximately 30 participants will be recruited from each building into the objective monitoring arm. Participants will wear accelerometers (to monitor physical activity and sitting inside and outside the office) and a novel tracking device will be placed in the office (to record participant location) for five consecutive days. Data will be analysed using regression analyses, as well as novel agent-based modelling techniques. Ethics and dissemination The results of this study will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications and scientific presentations. Ethical approval was obtained through the University College London Research Ethics Committee (Reference number 4400/001).

Funding

This work was funded by the National Institute for Health Research's School for Public Health Research (NIHR SPHR).

History

School

  • Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences

Published in

BMJ Open

Citation

SMITH, L., ...et al., 2013. Active buildings: modelling physical activity and movement in office buildings. An observational study protocol. BMJ Open, 3:e004103, doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2013-004103

Publisher

© The Authors. Published by BMJ Publishing Group.

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC 3.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

Publication date

2013

Notes

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 3.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

ISSN

2044-6055

Language

  • en

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