Grant: Operating Grant: Data Analysis Using Existing CDN Databases and Cohorts

Most Canadians do not have healthy habits that align with established recommendations for healthy eating, physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep. As a result, poor lifestyles are among the leading causes of chronic diseases like cancer, heart disease, and diabetes as well as mental disorders in Canada, particularly among the socioeconomically disadvantaged people and in racialized communities. Instilling healthy lifestyle habits from a young age is key to prevention. The environment of the communities and neighbourhoods surrounding schools where youngsters spend most of their waking hours plays an important role in shaping healthy lifestyle habits. This built and social environment around schools is potentially modifiable. However, in order to drive meaningful improvements in healthy lifestyle habits, we need to gain a better understanding of how environments support healthy behaviour choices. In this study, we will first create two measures that can be used to summarize the built and social environments of neighbourhoods surrounding schools. We will then use these summary measures to describe the built and social environments of all school neighbourhoods in Canada according to socioeconomic disadvantage. Lastly, we will assess how the built and social environments of school neighbourhoods is linked with lifestyle behaviours and mental health of Canadian youth. To accomplish this, we will leverage two existing data platforms. To create summary measures of the built social and built environments, we will capitalize on rich nation-wide environment data, developed and maintained by CANUE. We will then link these to data on diet, physical activity and other health factors collected from a large sample of high school students through the COMPASS study. This project will generate important evidence that may support the development of effective public health policies and interventions to support healthy lifestyle behaviours and mental health of Canadian youth.