Daily Physical Activity, Sedentary Behavior and Alcohol Use in At-Risk College Students

Background The college years present an opportunity to establish health behavior patterns that can track across adulthood. Health behaviors tend to cluster synergistically however, physical activity and alcohol have shown a positive association. Purpose This study applied a multi-method approach to estimate between- and within-person associations between daily physical activity, sedentary behavior and alcohol use among polysubstance-using college students. Methods Participants were screened for recent binge drinking and either tobacco or cannabis use. They wore an activPAL4 activity monitor and a Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitor continuously in the field for 11 days, and completed daily online questionnaires at the beginning of each day to report previous day physical activity, sedentary behavior, and alcohol consumption. Results Participants (N = 58, Mage = 20.5 years, 59% women, 69% White) reported meeting national aerobic physical activity guidelines (75%) and drinking 2–4 times in the past month (72%). On days when participants reported an hour more than usual of daily sedentary behavior, they reported drinking for less time than usual (γ = −.06). On days when participants took 1,000 more steps than usual, the longest episode of continuous transdermal alcohol detection was shorter (γ = −.03). Conclusions Daily physical activity and sedentary behavior were negatively associated with time-based measures of alcohol use with the lowest risk on days characterized by both activity and sedentary behavior. Intensive longitudinal monitoring of time-based processes can provide new insights into risk in multiple behavior change and should be prioritized for future work.

A systematic review of physical activity, sedentary behavior, and substance use in adolescents and emerging adults

The transition from adolescence into emerging adulthood is marked by changes in both physical activity and substance use. This systematic review characterized associations between movement behaviors (physical activity, sedentary behavior) and frequently used substances (alcohol, cannabis) among adolescents and emerging adults to inform lifestyle interventions that target multiple behavior change outcomes. This systematic review was guided by PRISMA. Electronic databases of PubMed, PsycINFO, and Web of Science were searched from inception through June 25, 2019. The search was designed to identify empirical studies reporting an association between physical activity or sedentary behavior and alcohol or cannabis, with search criteria determining eligibility based on several sampling characteristics (e.g., participants under 25 years of age). After identifying and screening 5,610 studies, data were extracted from 97 studies. Physical activity was positively associated with alcohol use among emerging adults, but the literature was mixed among adolescents. Sedentary behavior was positively associated with alcohol and cannabis use among adolescents, but evidence was limited among emerging adults. Self-report measures were used in all but one study to assess these behaviors. Physical activity is linked to greater alcohol use among emerging adults. Whereas existing studies demonstrate that sedentary behavior might serve as a risk marker for alcohol and cannabis use among adolescents, additional primary research is needed to explore these associations in emerging adults. Future work should also use device-based measures to account for timing of and contextual features surrounding activity and substance use in these populations.

Do Combinations of Behavior Change Techniques That Occur Frequently in Interventions Reflect Underlying Theory?

Background Behavioral interventions typically include multiple behavior change techniques (BCTs). The theory informing the selection of BCTs for an intervention may be stated explicitly or remain unreported, thus impeding the identification of links between theory and behavior change outcomes. Purpose This study aimed to identify groups of BCTs commonly occurring together in behavior change interventions and examine whether behavior change theories underlying these groups could be identified. Methods The study involved three phases: (a) a factor analysis to identify groups of co-occurring BCTs from 277 behavior change intervention reports; (b) examining expert consensus (n = 25) about links between BCT groups and behavioral theories; (c) a comparison of the expert-linked theories with theories explicitly mentioned by authors of the 277 intervention reports. Results Five groups of co-occurring BCTs (range: 3–13 BCTs per group) were identified through factor analysis. Experts agreed on five links (≥80% of experts), comprising three BCT groups and five behavior change theories. Four of the five BCT group–theory links agreed by experts were also stated by study authors in intervention reports using similar groups of BCTs. Conclusions It is possible to identify groups of BCTs frequently used together in interventions. Experts made shared inferences about behavior change theory underlying these BCT groups, suggesting that it may be possible to propose a theoretical basis for interventions where authors do not explicitly put forward a theory. These results advance our understanding of theory use in multicomponent interventions and build the evidence base for further understanding theory-based intervention development and evaluation.

2269 Day-to-day association between alcohol use and physical activity in university students

OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: The goal of the present study was to advance our understanding of how alcohol use may contribute to physical inactivity among university students by investigating this association at a day-to-day level. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: In total, 57 university students (Mage=20.27; 54% male) completed daily diary questionnaires using a cellphone application, which prompted them each evening to report minutes of moderate/vigorous physical activity engaged in, and number of alcoholic drinks consumed, as well as intended minutes of physical activity for the following day. Longitudinal mixed-level modeling was used to disentangle within person and between-person effects of alcohol use on physical activity behavior and intentions. Separate models were run to investigate lagged effects of previous day alcohol use. We controlled for sex and age in all models. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Results indicated that participants’ usual alcohol use (between-person) was not associated with physical activity behavior or intentions. At the within-person level, day-to-day variance in alcohol use was negatively associated with both physical activity behavior (γ=−0.34, p=0.003) and intentions to engage in physical activity the following day (γ=−0.70, p<0.001). The lagged model indicated that previous day alcohol use negatively predicted PA behavior (γ=−0.33, p=0.004). DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: Previous studies have largely been constrained to cross-sectional designs, and have surmised that there exists a positive association between alcohol use and physical activity due to trait-level differences between university students. We advance this literature by using ecological momentary assessment to investigate the within-person effects of alcohol use on physical activity at a day-to-day level while controlling for between-person variance. Contrary to existing literature, we found that on days when students consumed relatively more alcohol than they typically report, they: (a) report fewer minutes of physical activity on the same day, (b) plan to engage in relatively less physical activity on the subsequent day, and (c) engage in less physical activity on the subsequent day. By advancing our understanding of how alcohol use may curtail other health behaviors such as physical activity, we inform interventions that aim to target these behaviors in conjunction, or as part of a multiple behavior change intervention.