Post on 07-Jan-2020
Unleashing the power of peers for health
PEER-ACTIVE: a school based study on physical activity
Institute for Health and Consumer Protection Joint Research Centre
In collaboration with the University of Cambridge and UST Varese (Italy)
Peer-Active Project
WHY?
• tackling obesity problem in adolescents
HOW?
developing adequate tools for changing the behavior of children towards a healthier lifestyle
promoting physical activity (PA) by taking advantage of existing
networks of friends among pupils
Angera
Sesto Calende
MILAN
Winter Phase
Spring Phase
Sample size
=180
=173
Ispra
Comabbio
Varano Borghi
Laveno
Golasecca Vergiat
Malgesso
Mercallo
21+19
24 18+2
18
13
14
18
24+26
39
Taino
14+12 3x19
Cimbr
2
• Physical activity is measured through accelerometers
• Kids receive weekly points based on physical performance
• Points can be exchanged with rewards at the end of the experiment
• non-invasive • weight: 27 gr (3.8cm x 3.7
cm x 1.8 cm)
Experimental treatments
• Social reward treatment: reward according to others' (e.g., friends) performance
• Individual reward treatment: reward according to individual performance.
• Baseline treatment: reward not based on physical activity
•Friendship network construction for social treatments
Improving the effectiveness of social schemes by pairing kids on the basis of their friendship level
Social treatment
Social treatment 1: PEER
• Child's reward depends on the performance of two other peers, while its own performance affects two other children's rewards.
Social treatment 2: RECIPROCITY
• Providers are also receivers. The performance of each child has an impact on the rewards of other two members
Social treatment 3: GROUP
• All the three members of the closed team accumulate points together, which are then equally distributed among them
Baseline Treatment
• Children receive points according to a lottery, not related to their physical performance
Peer-Active Facts Measuring the PA of more than 350 students from 18 different 5th
grade classes around the area of Varese from February to May 2014
Recording more than 140,000 activity hours in total (excluding sleep time), corresponding to 380 hours per student or 13,5 hours per day and student
Collecting one of the most long-lasting (almost 2 months) datasets in the PA literature
Q1: Individual vs Social treatments
Baseline
Preliminary Conclusions (TBC) • All Conditions are effective in promoting PA
• Social incentives appear more effective than individual
• Reciprocity and Group Conditions appear to have a greater
impact on children's PA • Responses to social incentives are probably affected by
gender.
• (Un)-expected results: Increased responsibility and group feeling
• Full data exploitation: school networks, personality tests, weather conditions, holidays and weekend effect...
Science building bridges with Society! Final event at the JRC: a day in the field (lab)!
really NOT understandable
rho .15572069 (fraction of variance due to u_i)
sigma_e 6.4460555
sigma_u 2.7683699
_cons 17.44445 .6412551 27.20 0.000 16.18761 18.70129
pmvf .1040799 .008259 12.60 0.000 .0878926 .1202672
pmvt0 .0780352 .0086584 9.01 0.000 .0610651 .0950053
phase 2.298674 .3327087 6.91 0.000 1.646577 2.950771
fem -2.637605 .3207773 -8.22 0.000 -3.266317 -2.008893
5 1.692971 .4957044 3.42 0.001 .7214082 2.664534
4 1.676272 .5535943 3.03 0.002 .5912471 2.761297
3 .4052913 .5245524 0.77 0.440 -.6228124 1.433395
2 .5018683 .4751745 1.06 0.291 -.4294565 1.433193
cnd_n
pmv Coef. Std. Err. z P>|z| [95% Conf. Interval]
corr(u_i, X) = 0 (assumed) Prob > chi2 = 0.0000
Wald chi2(8) = 368.77
overall = 0.0888 max = 42
between = 0.2624 avg = 32.5
R-sq: within = 0.0175 Obs per group: min = 8
Group variable: id_code Number of groups = 348
Random-effects GLS regression Number of obs = 11312
. xtreg pmv i.cnd_n fem phase pmvt0 pmvf, re