Prevalence of current smoking and association with meeting 24-h movement guidelines: Results from a national convenience sample of autistic adults

LAY ABSTRACT

Cigarette smoking is a leading risk behavior for cardiovascular disease; yet its prevalence and determinants are not clear in autistic adults. We examined the prevalence of current smoking and its association between meeting 24-h movement (i.e. sleep, physical activity, and sedentary behavior) guidelines in a self-selecting convenience sample of 259 autistic adults in the United States. We found that current smokers met fewer 24-h movement guidelines. Most significant, those who had insufficient sleep and those with high levels of sedentary behavior were more likely to be current smokers. Therefore, targeting these movement behaviors may be potential intervention targets for smoking cessation.

Factors Related to Physical Activity in Adults With Intellectual Disabilities in Group Home Settings: A Systematic Literature Review

This systematic review of literature aimed to synthesize the multilevel factors related to physical activity (PA) among adults (age 18-65) with intellectual disability living in group homes. Keyword searches were used to identify articles from electronic databases, resulting in the inclusion of 10 articles for full-text review. Data were extracted relating to study and sample characteristics and study findings. Methodological quality of the studies was also evaluated. Factors related to PA in group homes were identified at all levels of the social-ecological model. Intrapersonal factors (e.g., health and functional status, attitude to PA), interpersonal factors (e.g., staff attitude, encouragement for PA, and coparticipation in PA), and organizational factors (e.g., program offerings, staff education, and staff-client ratios) were prominent findings in the reviewed studies. The findings support a social-ecological approach for PA promotion in group homes that target intrapersonal, interpersonal, and organizational factors.

Identifying the most proximal multi-level factors associated with meeting each of the 24-h movement behavior recommendations in a sample of autistic adults

BACKGROUND

Autistic adults have poorer 24-h movement behaviors, including lower levels of physical activity, more time spent being sedentary, and shorter sleep duration than neurotypical adults. Social ecological frameworks posit that 24-h movement behaviors are determined by multi-level domains; however, not known is which multi-level factors are most important to meeting each of the 24-h movement behavior guidelines among autistic adults.

OBJECTIVE

This study examined the relative importance of a range of multi-level determinants on meeting guidelines for the 24-h movement behaviors of aerobic physical activity, sedentary behavior, and sleep.

METHODS

We administered at cross-sectional electronic survey to a national self-selecting, convenience sample of autistic adults and caregivers of autistic adults residing in the USA. We used machine learning to examine the relative variable importance (VIMP) of 55 multi-level variables with meeting recommendations for physical activity, sedentary behavior, and sleep duration. VIMPs >0 indicate predictive variables/domains.

RESULTS

A greater number of group activities attended in the last 3-months, and greater independence in completing activities of daily living were most important to meeting aerobic physical activity guidelines. Group activity participation and marital status were important to meeting sedentary behavior guidelines while having a fewer number of comorbidities was most important to achieving adequate sleep.

CONCLUSIONS

These data support hypotheses about the role of family and social level interventions targeting movement behaviors in autistic adults.

Parish registers and urban structure: the example of late-eighteenth century Liverpool

Readers of theYearbookmay readily ascertain from its register of research and bibliography that the energy applied to the urban history of Victorian England has not only been substantial but is far from expended. The attraction of huge amounts of raw material, both quantitative and literary, is difficult to resist. However, the challenge of seeking less solidly founded insights with the less abundant and more indirect sources of the eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries has met with a far less enthusiastic response. In any case the sparseness of eighteenth-century sources is less stark than at first appears. Although by no means as reliable or as widely ramified in content as census data, Anglican parish registers offer considerable scope for anyone willful enough to resist the census honey pot. Particularly when supported by ancillary sources, such as maps and directories, they provide sufficient information for at least a tentative exploration of the beginning and unfolding of an urban process whose mature expression is revealed in the cornucopia of the middle-nineteenth century.