Showing papers by "Niamh Murphy published in 2017"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compared the validity and reliability of three short physical activity self-report instruments to determine their potential for use with university student populations and found that the agreement level was high with the International Physical Activity Questionnaire-Short Form (77.4%) and moderate for both the single-item measure (45.2%) and a brief two item measure (44.5%) and the intraclass correlations between the two administrations were moderate to strong acros...
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to compare the validity and reliability of three short physical activity self-report instruments to determine their potential for use with university student populations. The participants (N = 155; 44.5% male; 22.9 ± 5.13 years) wore an accelerometer for 9 consecutive days and completed a single-item measure, the a brief two item measure and the International Physical Activity Questionnaire—Short Form questionnaires on day 1 and 9. Correlations between self-reported and accelerometer derived moderate-to-vigorous physical activity levels were moderate for the International Physical Activity Questionnaire—Short Form, while poor for the single-item measure and the a brief two item measure. The agreement level was high with the International Physical Activity Questionnaire—Short Form (77.4%) and moderate for both the single-item measure (45.2 %) and a brief two item measure (44.5 %). The intraclass correlations between the two administrations were moderate to strong acros...
37 citations
TL;DR: GAA sports clubs who have been recruited to a project run in partnership with the GAA and the Irish Department of Health scored low in relation to policy and coaching activities specific to health promotion, and higher for their ideology and environmental considerations.
Abstract: In Ireland, a GAA sports club exists in almost every community. The purpose of this analysis is to present the health promotion orientation of clubs who have been recruited to a project run in part...
10 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the factors that precluded the introduction of car restrictive policies in two towns participating in Ireland's Smarter Travel program to promote sustainable travel and found that car accessibility created an illusion of vibrancy that provided security to the retail sector.
Abstract: The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the factors that precluded the introduction of car restrictive policies in two towns participating in Ireland’s Smarter Travel programme to promote sustainable travel. A total of 14 semi-structured interviews were conducted with the project co-ordinators, community advocates for active travel and retail traders (shops and small businesses). The results indicated that the Smarter Travel co-ordinators were inexperienced in using a full range of pricing, programming and policy measures specific to active travel. A more significant factor was the power of the trader lobby. In the town with the lower population density, car accessibility in the urban centre was perceived by retail traders to be directly associated with retail turnover. In the town with the higher population density, retail traders stated that car accessibility created an illusion of vibrancy that provided security to the retail sector. The retail traders disliked the local authority’s didactic approach to consultation and this dissonance manifested itself in displays of power against the local authority and not necessarily against Smarter Travel per se. Both local authorities struggled to sell the business case for car restrictive policies to the retail traders. They also failed to engage the silent majority in the wider community to act as advocates for active travel. The wider implications for the implementation of Smarter Travel policy are presented. It is important to create community support for active travel interventions by forming ‘town user’ forums and active travel lobby groups and making the local media partners in the project. Training and support should be provided to local authorities to deliver a more comprehensive suite of measures. A toolkit should be developed for local authorities to create a business case for introducing car restrictive measures. Incentives such as improvements to the public realm and accessibility for cyclists should be introduced before car restrictive measures. Car restrictive measures should be introduced incrementally such as introducing temporary pedestrianization or gradually reducing parking supply thereby demonstrating the benefits of the measure to stakeholders.
8 citations
TL;DR: Interventions designed to increase active travel to school hold some promise but should have a high-intensity mix of infrastructural and behavioral measures, be gender-specific, address car dependency and focus on travel home from school initially.
Abstract: Background:There is a paucity of intervention studies assessing active travel to school as a mechanism to increase physical activity. This paper describes the impact of a community-wide intervention on active travel to primary schools in 2 Irish towns. Methods:This was a repeat cross-sectional study of a natural experiment. Self-report questionnaires were completed by 5th and 6th grade students in 3 towns (n = 1038 students in 2 intervention towns; n = 419 students in 1 control town) at baseline and by a new group of students 2 years later at follow-up. The absolute change in the proportion of children walking and cycling to school (difference in differences) was calculated. Results:There was no overall intervention effect detected for active travel to or from school. This is despite an absolute increase of 14.7% (1.6, 27.9) in the proportion of children that indicated a preference for active travel to school in the town with the most intensive intervention (town 2). Conclusions:Interventions designed to ...
7 citations