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In Western Australia (WA) social activities occur in aquatic environments where alcohol promotion and consumption may be prevalent creating an aquatic alcogenic environment. This poses a challenge for drowning prevention efforts.
Childhood is a critical period for the development of movement behaviours such as physical activity, sleep and sedentary behaviour. The PLAYCE Cohort was established to investigate how movement behaviours change over early to middle childhood, across key behaviour settings and relationships with health and development. An overview of the PLAYCE cohort, summary of key findings to date, and future research opportunities are presented.
High levels of sedentary behaviour are associated with poor child health outcomes such as obesity. Early childhood education and care (ECEC) services are a key intervention setting. Most ECEC policy-based interventions focus on children's nutrition and physical activity with few aimed at children's sedentary behaviour.
Food environments are significant drivers of obesity and diet-related diseases, making them key targets for interventions that support healthier food choices. The role of Local Government Authorities is pivotal in shaping community food environments.
Current methods for assessing the healthfulness of 24-hour movement behaviours (sleep, sedentary time, light physical activity, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity) use binary classifications that fail to capture their continuous and compositional nature. This study introduces a percentile-based scoring and visualization approach to evaluate the healthfulness of movement behaviour time-use compositions, using social-emotional development in early childhood as an example.
Unhealthy outdoor food advertising is strongly linked to poor diet, highlighting the need for policies. Western Australian (WA) local governments can restrict advertising on their owned infrastructure through their Public Health Plans, but limited policy action has occurred.
Child poverty remains a major global concern and a child's experience of deprivation is heavily shaped by where they live and the stability of their local neighbourhood. This study examines frequencies and patterns of residential mobility in children and young people at a population level using novel geospatial techniques to assess how often their physical environment changes and to identify geographical variations in social mobility.
We know relatively little about the role the neighbourhood built environment plays in promoting young children's physical activity, particularly its longitudinal effect either through repeated exposure to the same environment or through change in exposure by moving from one neighbourhood to another.
Canada, Australia, the World Health Organization and other countries have released 24-hour movement guidelines for the early years which integrate physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and sleep, focusing on supporting children to achieve a healthy 24-hour day. The guideline evidence synthesis, however, highlighted the dearth of high-quality evidence, particularly from large-scale studies.
Physically locating liquor stores near schools can strongly influence the chances of youth accessing and consuming alcohol, and may also increase children's exposure to alcohol advertising. Investigating the association between the presence of a liquor store near a school and the prevalence of outdoor alcohol advertising is crucial from a policy perspective, as it can inform future regulations on the placement of liquor stores and outdoor advertising near educational institutions.