The Measures

Questionnaires

All participants in PEACH and PEAR are asked to complete a questionnaire.  This is broken into parts to make it easier to complete, and it is completed on handheld electronic devices. 

The questionnaire asks about their neighbourhood; how easy or difficult is it to get around your local area; how safe do you feel when you do; where do you like to spend time, how do you get to and from these places and who do you like to go there with? 

Body Measurements

All of the measurements are taken by trained University of Bristol researchers, and the measurement session takes place in school.  The pupils wear their normal school uniform but are asked to take off their shoes and their jumpers or coats if they are wearing them.

We take these measurements in order to look at the relationships between activity, time outdoors and health indicators. 

The measurements include...

• Height – using a portable height meter
• Weight – using portable electronic scales
• Waist circumference – using a Seca body tape measure

Activity and location - The Belt: 

Students will wear an elastic belt with two electronic devices attached to it – a location device called a GPS receiver, and an activity monitor called an accelerometer.

Our studies use GPS to answer questions such as:

• Which destinations are popular for different young people?
• How much time do young people spend outdoors after school?
• Do young people who walk home from school spend more time playing outdoors?
• How could we change the physical features of our environment so that it is more attractive for young people to spend time in?

Together with the GPS data, accelerometer data can be used to address questions such as:

• Which locations do young people make most use of in their neighbourhoods?
• Are particular locations associated with different physical activity profiles?

Stress – Salivary Cortisol

Participants will be provided with a kit and asked to provide three small saliva samples on one weekday.

In the PEACH and PEAR Projects we are interested in learning more about how our surroundings might affect our stress levels. An accurate way of measuring stress is by looking at levels of a hormone called Cortisol that is found in your saliva. We each have a normal daily stress pattern that looks a bit like the picture on the right: it peaks in the morning soon after we wake up and then slowly gets lower as the day wears on. We would like to see whether the way people use the environment around them affects their normal stress pattern. 

For example we will be looking at whether spending more time outdoors is linked to having lower stress levels.  

Measures summary

Children

1. Computerised questionnaire including items on physical activity; Commuting choices, local area, personal growth and development, health behaviours.
2. Height, weight and waist circumference.
3. One week accelerometer.
4. One week GPS.
5. Cortisol testing via saliva samples

Parents

• Questionnaire including items on household; local area; height and weight; income and education levels.