Stephanie A Prince

• BSc Human Kinetics, MSc Epidemiology, PhD Population Health
• Research Scientist at Public Health Agency of Canada

Built environments that support cycling, especially those that are comfortable and safe (e.g., protected cycle tracks), are positively associated with physical activity (PA). The objective was to determine the associations between cycling infrastructure and transportational (PA TRA) and recreational (PA REC) PA among urban-dwelling Canadians. Self-...

Objective To synthesise data on the associations between cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and health in children and adolescents, evaluate the certainty of evidence and identify knowledge gaps. Design An overview of systematic reviews with meta-analyses. Results were pooled using forest plots and certainty of evidence evaluated with GRADE. Data so...

Objectives Greener neighbourhoods may support physical activity; however, it is also important to consider whether greener neighbourhoods are walkable. We assessed whether neighbourhood greenness and walkability were independently and jointly associated with transportational (PATRA) and recreational (PAREC) physical activity among a nationally repr...

Background: Adolescents who engage in physical activity experience positive mental health outcomes. However, the increasing prevalence of physical inactivity combined with high screen time use among adolescents is a growing concern. Parents play an important role in shaping adolescents' physical activity and screen time levels through active parti...

Background: Physical fitness in childhood and adolescence is associated with a variety of health outcomes and is a powerful marker of current and future health. However, inconsistencies in tests and protocols limit international monitoring and surveillance. The objective of the study was to seek international consensus on a proposed, evidence-infor...

The relationships among neighbourhood greenness, physical activity, and mental health are unclear; therefore, we examined the independent and synergistic associations between neighbourhood greenness and self-rated mental health among a nationally representative sample of urban-dwelling adults in Canada (18-79 years) from the 2007-2019 Canadian Heal...

Objectives: This study investigated the associations between specific sleep health characteristics and indicators of positive mental health among Canadian youth in grades 6-10. Methods: We used cross-sectional data from the Canadian 2017/2018 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study, a nationally representative sample of Canadian students. Ou...

Background: Active commuting (AC) to and from work is associated with numerous health benefits, through increased physical activity. This study examined whether occupation types and part-time work, by sex, were associated with AC in a population-based sample of Canadian workers. Data and methods: Cross-sectional public use microdata files from t...

Background : Active transportation (AT), described as self-powered modes of travel (eg, walking and cycling), is an important source of health-promoting physical activity. While AT behaviors have been measured on national health surveys in Canada for over 2 decades, historic prevalence has not been previously reported. We aimed to document the meas...

Cities concentrate problems that affect human well-being and biodiversity. Exploring the link between mental health and biodiversity can inform more holistic public health and urban planning. Here we examined associations between bird and tree species diversity estimates from eBird community science datasets and national forest inventories with sel...

Purpose While research demonstrates low levels of physical activity (PA) among adults living with atrial fibrillation (AF), there is limited evidence investigating sex differences in moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity (MVPA) and sedentary time in this population. The primary aim was to examine sex differences in MVPA levels and sittin...

Background: Over the last several years, recreational screen time has been increasing. During the COVID-19 pandemic, recreational screen time rose among Canadian youth and adults, and those who increased screen time had poorer self-reported mental health compared with those who decreased or maintained their recreational screen time levels. Data a...

Objective To examine and summarise evidence from meta-analyses of cohort studies that evaluated the predictive associations between baseline cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and health outcomes among adults. Design Overview of systematic reviews. Data source Five bibliographic databases were searched from January 2002 to March 2024. Results From...

Objectives High levels of sedentary time (ST) are associated with poor physical and mental health. Given that Canadians spend a large portion of their days at school and work, they may be important targets for reducing ST. Our objectives are to estimate the daily amount of school and work ST among Canadians, examine differences by subgroups, and de...

Background Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is an important indicator of current and future health. While the impact of habitual physical activity on CRF is well established, the role of sedentary behaviour (SB) remains less understood. Objective We aimed to determine the effect of SB on CRF. Methods Searches were conducted in MEDLINE, Embase, Psy...

This chapter reviews evidence from intervention studies targeting the reduction of sedentary behaviours among persons with pre-existing disease or disability. It briefly reviews the evidence for the need for such interventions and provides a summary of interventions that have been completed to date. It also briefly reviews interventions that are on...

Background The growth of urban dwelling populations globally has led to rapid increases of research and policy initiatives addressing associations between the built environment and physical activity (PA). Given this rapid proliferation, it is important to identify priority areas and research questions for moving the field forward. The objective of...

Identifying individual-level and school-level correlates of walking and cycling to school remains a public health priority as only one in four Canadian youth actively travels to school. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of Canadian youth in grades 6 to 10 who walk, cycle, or use motorised transport to go to school, and to examine if schoo...

Background The social and behavioural factors related to physical activity among adults are well known. Despite the overlapping nature of these factors, few studies have examined how multiple predictors of physical activity interact. This study aimed to identify the relative importance of multiple interacting sociodemographic and work-related facto...

Introduction Les activités de renforcement des muscles et d’amélioration de l’équilibre sont associées à la prévention des maladies et des blessures. Les Directives canadiennes en matière de mouvement sur 24 heures offrent des recommandations concernant les activités de renforcement de l’appareil locomoteur et d’amélioration de l’équilibre. Entre20...

Introduction Muscle-strengthening and balance activities are associated with the prevention of illness and injury. Age-specific Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines include recommendations for muscle/bone-strengthening and balance activities. From 2000–2014, the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) included a module that assessed frequency in 22...

Background: Previous studies examining the cardiometabolic risks associated with physical activity (PA) in workers have predominantly used self-reported measures. Little is known about workers' distinct daily PA patterns and whether these are linked with cardiometabolic risks. This study examined associations between patterns of workers' accelerom...

Objective: To determine the association between social media use (SMU) and physical activity (PA) among Canadian adolescents. Methods: We used data from 12,358 participants in grades 6 to 10 who responded to the Canadian component of the 2017/2018 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey. Social media intensity and problematic SMU...

Background: Data on meeting the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for adults (24-H Guidelines) and associations with health indicators by body mass index (BMI) class are needed to support public health surveillance. The aim of this study was to describe the proportion of Canadian adults meeting individual and various combinations of the 24-H Gu...

Introduction: The new Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for Adults aged 18-64 years and Adults aged 65 years and older recommend that adults limit daily sedentary time to eight hours or less, including three hours or less of recreational screen time. The eight-hour recommendation was centred between the evidence from research using self-reported...

Introduction Over the last decade, e-cigarette use has been on the rise but with growing health concerns. The objective of this systematic review was to update findings for chronic health outcomes associated with e-cigarette use from the 2018 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) report. Methods Three bibliographic data...

Background Built environments have been implicated in the development of chronic disease, with physical activity (PA) considered one of the critical mechanisms for this relationship. Substantial growth in research on built environments and PA makes navigating the available evidence challenging. Objective To examine and describe the current state,...

Background The measurement of physical fitness has a history that dates back nearly 200 years. Recently, there has been an increase in international research and surveillance on physical fitness creating a need for setting international priorities that could help guide future efforts. Objective This study aimed to produce a list of the top 10 inte...

Background: Recently, the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for Adults were released, and included a revised physical activity (PA) recommendation. The recommendation of 150 minutes per week of moderate-to-vigorous intensity PA (MVPA) was revised, from requiring that MVPA be accrued in bouts of 10 minutes or more (bouted) to having no bout requ...

Investment in public transport is on the rise as many cities around the world aim to reduce their carbon footprint and improve population health. One such investment is building or extending Light Rail Transit (LRT). Focusing on studies in the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, this paper reports the results of a systematic review on the asso...

Background: Built environments have shown to be associated with health, with physical activity (PA) considered one of the critical pathways for achieving benefits. Navigating available evidence on the built environment and PA is challenging given the number of reviews. Objective: Examine the current state and quality of research looking at assoc...

Background There is a need to explore common activity patterns undertaken by workers and the association between these activity profiles and cardiovascular disease (CVD). This study explored the number and type of distinct profiles of activity patterns among workers and the association between these profiles and predicted 10‐year risk for a first a...

Meeting the physical activity (PA) and recreational screen time recommendations for children and young people is associated with several health benefits. The purpose of this study was to compare the odds of meeting PA and recreational screen time recommendations between the Canadian youth living in urban versus rural communities. We analyzed nation...

Introduction L’objectif de cette étude était d’effectuer une revue systématique des relations entre, d’une part, l’horaire des comportements sédentaires et l’accès à des activités sédentaires dans la chambre et, d’autre part, la durée et la qualité du sommeil chez les enfants et les adolescents. Un objectif secondaire consistait à vérifier si ces r...

Background The purpose of this study was to systematically review the relationship between the timing of sedentary behaviours and access to sedentary activities in the bedroom with sleep duration and quality in children and youth. A secondary purpose was to examine whether these relationships differ when comparing screen-based and non-screen-based...

Background Using a nationally representative cohort of Canadian adults, we assessed associations between neighbourhood walkability and cause-specific mortality and investigated whether they differed by socioeconomic status. Methods The study population was drawn from the 2001 Canadian Census Health and Environment Cohort, which contains individual...

Background To determine the time spent completing moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity (MVPA) among adults with atrial fibrillation (AF). Secondary aims examined MVPA and sitting time (ST) by AF subtypes (i.e., paroxysmal, persistent, long-standing persistent and permanent) and associations between MVPA or ST and knowledge, task self-ef...

Regular physical activity prevents several non-communicable chronic conditions and premature mortality. The benefits of physical activity can be achieved through active transport, which refers to non-motorised/active means (e.g. walking, cycling, rollerblading) to move from one place to another. Active transport can be integrated into daily routine...

The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a global public health crisis that disproportionately affects those with pre-existing conditions. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death worldwide and many key CVD risk factors are modifiable (e.g., physical inactivity, sedentary behavior, obesity). To limit the spread of COVID-19...

Background Although it is generally accepted that physical activity reduces the risk for chronic non-communicable disease and mortality, accumulating evidence suggests that occupational physical activity (OPA) may not confer the same health benefits as leisure time physical activity (LTPA). It is also unclear if workers in high OPA jobs benefit fro...

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic disproportionately affects those with pre-existing conditions and has exacerbated gender inequalities. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death among Canadian women. Exercise improves physical and mental health and CVD management. Amid the pandemic, women are experiencing an increase in...

Selected for poster presentation at the Canadian Women’s Heart Health Summit, Ottawa, Canada. * Postponed from April 2020 to February 10-13, 2021 due to COVID-19

Introduction To examine the effectiveness of universal suicide prevention interventions on reducing suicide mortality in high-income Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries. Methods We implemented a comprehensive search strategy across three electronic databases: MEDLINE (Ovid), PsycINFO (Ovid) and Embase (Ov...

Introduction: Previous research has shown that nurses are not meeting recommended moderate-to-vigorous intensity PA (MVPA) guidelines (≥150 minutes/week) for optimal cardiovascular disease risk reduction. Socio-ecological approaches have been used to explore the determinants of PA levels. We examined personal, social and environmental factors assoc...

Background Exercise maintenance interventions are needed for cardiac rehabilitation (CR) graduates to maintain moderate and vigorous-intensity physical activity (MVPA). We tested an exercise facilitator intervention (EFI) to promote exercise maintenance compared to usual care (UC) separately in men and women. Methods This was a 3-site, randomized...

The purpose of this overview of systematic reviews was to determine the relationship between different types and patterns of sedentary behaviour and selected health outcomes in adults and older adults. Five electronic databases were last searched in May, 2019, with a 10-year search limit. Included reviews met the a priori population (community-dwel...

Background: Adults spend a large proportion of their day at work. Physical activity (PA) and sedentary behaviour (SB) have been shown to vary considerably between occupations. The objective of this study is to describe occupational differences in accelerometer-measured and self-reported PA and SB for Canadian full-time workers. Data and methods:...

Background: Canadians spend the majority of their days sedentary. Gender and education are important social determinants of health that impact health behaviours. There is evidence that gender and educational differences in sedentary behaviour exist. In Canada, while general trends suggest that leisure sedentary activities have changed; there has b...

Background: Canada recently adopted the 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for Children and Youth (24-Hour Guidelines) for young people aged 5 to 17 years—an international first, providing integrated recommendations for physical activity, sedentary time and sleep. Since the release of the guidelines, very few studies have examined the associations of adhe...

Background Historical changes in the nature of sedentary activities have been observed in other countries, but it is not clear if similar trends exist in Canada. It is also unclear how changes in the measurement of sedentary behaviour affects national estimates. Our objective is to document all sources and measures of sedentary behaviour from Canad...

Background Cardiovascular disease remains a leading cause of death in women. Despite the well-known benefits of cardiac rehabilitation, it remains underutilized, especially among women. Physical activity programs in the community, however, attract a large female population, suggesting that they overcome barriers to physical activity encountered by...

Background: Sedentary behaviour (SB) is a risk factor for chronic disease and premature mortality. While many individual studies have examined the reliability and validity of various self-report measures for assessing SB, it is not clear, in general, how self-reported SB (e.g., questionnaires, logs, ecological momentary assessments (EMAs)) compare...

Background Research has suggested ideal combinations of sleep, physical activity (PA) and sedentary time (ST) (i.e., optimal sleep/high PA/low ST) are associated with better overall health. Previous research has shown nurses spend more than half their day sedentary, do not generally meet PA guidelines and have difficulty obtaining adequate sleep. T...

Background Nurses’ suboptimal physical activity (PA) levels place them at high risk for cardiovascular diseases. Little is known about the motivational factors that influence their PA behavior. Purpose This study drew on the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) to investigate whether associations between nurses’ levels of mood disturbance, psychologica...

Background: While physical (in) activity surveillance has grown and continues to grow globally, surveillance of sedentary behaviour is in its infancy. As surveillance evolves to meet the changing nature of these behaviours, there is a need for the development of national health survey questions to provide accurate and consistent measures over time...

Background Adults spend the majority of their waking hours sedentary. Sedentary behaviour (SB) includes any waking behaviour with low energy expenditure while sitting, lying or reclining (e.g., watching TV, sitting at a desk) and is associated with several chronic diseases and mortality. Social influence, namely SB norms may be a modifiable factor...

Objective Nurses comprise the largest professional group within the Canadian health care workforce. We aimed to assess the prevalence and correlates of smoking among nurses. Methods The Champlain Nurses’ Study was a multi-centre, observational study that evaluated the physical activity levels and health of hospital-based nurses. Participants compl...

The objective of this study was to establish cut-points to identify potential clustered cardiometabolic risk among children (aged 9–13 years) and youth (aged 14–17 years) using the modified Canadian Aerobic Fitness Test (mCAFT). Nationally representative cross-sectional data were obtained from cycles 1 and 2 (2007–2011) of the Canadian Health Measu...

Background Generally, correlation and agreement between self-reported and accelerometer-measured physical activity are low. The objective of this study is to compare estimates of physical activity from a newly developed Canadian questionnaire with measurements by accelerometer among 12- to 17-year-olds. Data and methods Physical activity was self-...

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has modernized its approach to physical activity surveillance by broadening its scope to include sedentary behaviour and sleep. The first step was to develop a conceptual framework which covers the full spectrum of physical movement from moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity (MVPA) and light inte...

L’Agence de la santé publique du Canada a modernisé son approche en matière de sur¬veillance de l’activité physique en élargissant la portée de cette dernière de façon à englober le comportement sédentaire et le sommeil. La première étape a consisté à éla¬borer un cadre conceptuel couvrant toute la gamme de l’activité : activité physique d’intensit...

Background With approximately 8 hours of one’s waking day spent at work, occupational tasks and environments are important influencers on an individual’s physical activity (PA) and sedentary behaviours. Little research has compared device-measured physical activity, sedentary behaviour and cardiometabolic outcomes between occupational groups. Obje...

This commentary provides a response to the call for papers that explore why public health matters today. We present our thoughts and experiences as members of the inaugural (2017) cohort of Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Health System Impact Fellows, focused on population and public health projects within our respective health organi...

Introduction Les systèmes de géolocalisation par satellite (GPS) peuvent fournir un contexte supplémentaire sur les lieux où l’activité physique (AP) et les activités sédentaires (AS) sont pratiquées, surtout lorsque les données GPS sont superposées à celles de la mesure objective du mouvement. L’objectif de cet examen rapide était de résumer les d...

Introduction Geographical positioning systems (GPS) have the capacity to provide further context around where physical activity (PA) and sedentary time (ST) are accrued especially when overlaid onto objectively measured movement. The objective of this rapid review was to summarize evidence from location-based studies which employed the simultaneous...

Cardiac patients who engage in ≥150 min of moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity (MVPA)/week have lower mortality, yet MVPA declines even following cardiac rehabilitation (CR), and is lower in women. A randomized trial of nine socioecological theory-based exercise facilitation contacts over 50 weeks versus usual care (1:1 parallel arms)...

Background: Self-reported and accelerometer-measured physical activity levels generally exhibit low correlation and agreement. The objective of this study is to compare estimates of physical activity among adults from a newly developed Canadian questionnaire with those obtained objectively by accelerometry. Data and methods: Data for 18- to 79-year...

Physical inactivity and obesity are modifiable risk factors for cardiovascular disease, particularly in women. eHealth interventions may increase physical activity and improve obesity‐related outcomes among women. The objective of this study was to review the evidence of the effectiveness of eHealth interventions to increase moderate‐to‐vigorous ph...