The document outlines a mixed-methods research study investigating the use of local environments for physical activity, emphasizing the relationship between demographics, geography, and health outcomes. It seeks to address gaps in understanding how socio-demographic factors and the physical environment influence physical activity patterns, utilizing tools like GIS and social media for data collection. The study includes case studies in two Brisbane suburbs, with participants reporting their physical activity engagement and interactions within their local areas.

1. ‘T WITTERING THE T ERRAIN ’: A
M IXED -M ETHODS I NVESTIGATION
INTO THE U SE OF THE L OCAL
E NVIRONMENT FOR P HYSICAL
A CTIVITY.

2. T HE RESEARCH TEAM
 Dr Julie-Anne Carroll - Principal Investigator
 Dr Orit Ben-Harush – Research Manager
 Dr Kristiann Heesch - Fellow Investigator
 Dr Tracy Washington – Fellow Investigator
 Dr Lynda Andrews – Fellow Investigator
 Brendan Marsh – GIS Technical/Programming
Consultant
 Borislav Dusanic – GIS Technical/Design Consultant
 Donald Gee – Online Survey Technical Consultant

3. T HE F UNDING & E THICAL
A PPROVAL
 Women in Research Grant from QUT
 ECARD Research Project Funds
 Ethics Approval granted by QUT: 17th May 2011
 Ethics Number: 1100000449

4. B ACKGROUND
 Both public health and urban design research consistently
show that people’s area of residence is an important
determinant of their health and well-being (Day, 2008; Adams
et al, 2010).
 However, less is known about whether it is the residential
demographic, or the area itself, or a mixture of both that
drives these trends in health (Leslie & Cerin, 2008; Sallis,
2009).
 While socioeconomic demographics are said to be a leading
determinant of geographic patterns in health (Dahmann et al,
2010; Ball et al, 2010), it is uncertain as to what the best
solution might be to improving both the quality of poorer
areas, and the social responses to shared public spaces by
poorer demographics (Schasberger, 2009; Babey et al, 2008;
Hong & Farley, 2008).

5. P EOPLE , P LACE , AND P HYSICAL
A CTIVITY: ‘T HE K NOWNS ’
 Specifically, we know that:
 Socio-demographic measures of individuals are
reliable predictors of physical activity, with richer
people doing more of it than poorer people
(compositional effects).
 Places of residence appear to have strong
‘determining’ powers in relation to physical activity
(contextual effects).
 The socioeconomic ‘position’ of a place is a powerful
determinant of physical activity (contextual effects).

6. P EOPLE , P LACE , AND P HYSICAL
A CTIVITY: T HE U NKNOWNS
 What we do NOT know is:
 Whether it is the experience and characteristics of the
demographic, or the places themselves that are driving
epidemiological trends in PA along geographic lines.
 Whether people who occupy more well-off neighbourhoods
always have increased access to opportunities to be
physically active.
 To what extent the place matters at all in terms of how
physically active people are likely to be – ie do ‘people
clusters’ explain health patterns?
 What the complex communication and interactive
processes (between people and places) are that sustain
such predictable patterns in physical activity.

7. L IMITATIONS W ITHIN
C URRENT M ETHODOLOGIES
 Cross-Sectional Quantitative Analysis – allows us
to look at whether significant relationships occur
between demographic, geographic area, and self-
reported behaviour.
 Multi-Level Quantitative Analysis – More
sophisticated method that allows various
characteristics within people and their
environments to be measured simultaneously to
locate more precise socio-ecological variables
correlating with PA.

8. L IMITATIONS W ITHIN
C URRENT M ETHODOLOGIES
 Current use of GIS in Health Research – Researchers
are embracing new GIS systems, but none are tracking
the travel paths of demographics on these maps for
the purposes of physical activity.
 Use of ICTs in Health Research – An increasing
number of researchers are using ICTs and social media
to track the interactive processes that go on between
people to generate a range of ‘population effects’
 Qualitative Work on Health and Place – Allows us to
hear from people about how and why they interact
with the local environment (perceptions of place), but
does not allow us to match these perceptions with
actual practice.

9. T HUS , THIS STUDY SEEKS TO
INVESTIGATE …
 How/whether people use their local environment for
physical activity.
 Expose the interface between demographics, social media,
geography, and physical activity.
 To geographically locate and contextualise data on physical
activity patterns
 To generate an inventory or pathways and tracks that
people follow in their local environment, and find out
where they are going, and what they do there.
 By focusing on what people do in different places, and the
social processes via which they make these decisions, we
hope to find out how this interaction/relationship produces
different health profiles.

10. R ESEARCH Q UESTIONS
 Are people using their local environment for physical
activity?
 How are people using their local environment for physical
activity?
 Which aspects/resources/characteristics of the local
environment do they use for physical activity?
 Are different social groups using the same suburbs
differently?
 Are people willing to travel outside of their local suburbs to
pursue physical activity/healthy living?

11. R ESEARCH Q UESTIONS
 What is the role of social media in generating
and sustaining use of the local environment in
ways that affect population health?
 Do barriers to accessing high quality, healthy
public spaces exist amongst some social
demographics? (ie, the resources are there, but
we are not using them)
 Do barriers to accessing high quality, healthy
public spaces exist in some suburbs? (ie there
are very few spaces or opportunities for physical
activity)
 What are the implications for public health and
urban design?

12. METHOD: S QUARE P EGS
AND S QUARE H OLES
QUESTION? How do people use their local environs for PA?
Method: Use of ICTs (Twitter, Foursquare, Online Diaries) and
GIS (Google Earth) to generate a map of where people go
and what they do there.
QUESTION? Are there differences in these logistics/activities
along demographic or residential lines?
Method: Quant. analysis of places visited, distances travelled,
modes of transport, types of location and purpose of use.
QUESTION? Why do people use some places and not others?
Method: Follow-up qualitative info collected via Google maps,
Emails, and a Facebook Page to explain pathways.

13. E XPECTED OUTCOME
 Quantitative Data on how different social demographics
and different residential demographics behave and
consume in the local environment
 Qualitative Data on the reasons for their level/degree of
interaction with the local environment
 Spatial Data/Visual Map Display of data about how people
perceive and interact with the local environment – an online
resource for public health/town
planning/marketing/business.
 Findings will be presented at a national and international
conferences and published in peer-reviewed academic
journals.

14. S TUDY L OCATION
 Two suburban case studies within Brisbane,
Queensland, Australia
Bardon Inala
Population 1169 1274
ARIA :
 Highly Accessible Highly Accessible
SEIFA 1118.0 (high) 751.4 (low)
Walkability Scale ‘very walkable’ ‘somewhat walkable’
 High populations of families with children
 Assessing inherent advantages/disadvantages in relation to
physical activity

15. S TUDY PARTICIPANTS
 Participants: 80 mothers primary school-aged
children in two Brisbane suburbs, Bardon and Inala.
Bardon & Surrounds 40
Inala & Surrounds 40

16. R ECRUITMENT
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17. E NGAGING WITH PARTICIPANTS
 Online registration form
 Background online survey
 Choosing reporting method:
 Twitter
 Foursquare
 Online daily update

18. D ATA COLLECTION
 Reporting each place visited for a week
 Twitter/Foursquare mobile check-ins – real time
reporting
 Online daily updates – once a day
 Information collected:
 Location visited (exact address + venue name)
 Transport mode
 Activity description
 Date and time
 Remarks

19. T WITTER

20. FOURSQUARE

21. O NLINE
FORM

22. D ATA RETRIEVAL

23. V ISUAL REPRESENTATION

24. F OLLOW UP QUALITATIVE
DATA (P HASE T WO )
 Email to participants with a number of
qualitative questions , eg: What are the
household/neighbourhood barriers to PA in your
life?
 Table/Graph listing ‘favorite haunts’ and why
they like it there – parks/green spaces, rec/leisure,
extra curricular, and physical activity.
 Facebook Page interacting with participants about
their locality:
 Facebook for Twitter Trackers

25. D ATA A NALYSIS – C URRENTLY
U NDERWAY
 Quantitative Data – obtained via Twitter,
Foursquare, and Online Diaries and analysed in
SPSS and Excel.
 Qualitative Data – obtained via e-questions and
Facebook Page interactions and analysed in
Nvivo.
 Spatial Data – obtained via table/graph and
mapped onto GIS Google Earth.

26. Q UANTITATIVE D ATA

27. Q UALITATIVE D ATA
Dear Twitter Track Participant,
Thank you so much for
completing your online diaries :-)!
Instead of finishing the study with
a face-to-face meeting, we would
like to try a new method. It will
involve 2 tasks: Answering some
questions via email, and some
optional activity in Facebook later
on.

28. S PATIAL DATA - G OOGLE
MAPS

29. W HAT IS S O G OOD ABOUT
O NLINE /S OCIAL M EDIA FOR
D ATA C OLLECTION ?
 Less labour intensive and less time consuming
 Twitter and Foursquare give us data in ‘real time’
 Twitter and Foursquare give objective data about locations
and use of local environment
 Twitter and Foursquare provide ‘neat’ quantitative data for
analysis – ie, distances travelled, location type/category, as
well as qualitative insights about the social connections
driving people to these locations, and their opinions of the
places.
 Email is very quick and saves time by not having to transcribe.
Saves $$$.
 Facebook allows an open social laboratory for exploring how
people connect/interact in their local areas.

30. C HALLENGES AND THE
F OLLOW -U P S TUDY
 Mums not keen to TWITTER or FOURSQUARE –
Gen X and Gen Y/Higher and Lower
socioeconomic mums
 Mums OK to Facebook – hence the Twitter Track
Facebook Page – which will help us to ‘watch’ the
social processes that generate patterns in use of
the local area for health.
 Gen Y student cohort coming next! – we
anticipate a much higher level of engagement
with Twitter and Foursquare in this next study
about youth, place, and health.

31. D ATA A PPLICATION AND
I MPLICATIONS
 Online visual resource for town planners and social
marketers about where different social groups go, consume,
recreate, etc.
 Data map for future health promotion efforts in increasing
physical activity in different suburbs/areas.
 Insights about where to intervene from a public health
perspective – should we target people, place, or both, and
how?
 Add knowledge to some outstanding gaps in knowledge in
the people, place, and health research.
 Contribute to the advancement of new methodologies to
best track how people interact with place with implications
for their health.

32. T HANK YOU