Congratulations to HALO Affiliate Investigator and alumnus Dr. Richard Larouche and coauthors on a new paper titled “Canadian children’s independent mobility during the COVID-19 pandemic: a national survey” just published in Health and Place. Citation details and study summary are below.

Larouche, R., Bélanger, M., Brussoni, M., Faulkner, G., Gunnell, K., & Tremblay, M. S. (2023). Canadian children’s independent mobility during the COVID-19 pandemic: A national survey. Health & Place, 81, 103019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2023.103019

ABSTRACT

Independent mobility (IM) is associated with children’s physical activity and indicators of social, motor, and cognitive development. We surveyed Canadian parents of 7- to 12-year-olds (n = 2291) about social-ecological correlates of IM in the second wave of COVID-19 (December 2020). We used multi-variable linear regression models to identify correlates of children’s IM. Our final model (R2 = 0.353) included four individual-, eight family-, two social environment- and two built environment-level variables. The correlates of boys’ and girls’ IM were similar. Our findings suggest that interventions to support children’s IM in a pandemic context should target multiple levels of influence.

The full article can be found here.