Alexander Wray’s research while affiliated with Western University and other places

Food marketing plays a substantial role in shaping adolescent diets, having wide-ranging ramifications for health behaviours and outcomes throughout the life course. Yet, there remains a dearth of research about how outdoor advertising as a specific channel of food marketing affects purchasing behaviours. We examine self-reported purchases made at retail food outlets by adolescents as it relates to the availability of outdoor food and beverage advertising around each participant’s home, school, and along the journey to and from school. We also consider the impacts of sociodemographics and consumption attitudes on purchasing, as compared to the geographic availability of outdoor advertising. Data are drawn from a survey completed by 545 adolescents in 2018 across four secondary schools in the Middlesex-London region of Ontario, Canada. The availability of outdoor advertising in the home and school environment is marginally correlated with self-reported purchases made at fast food, table-based, grocery, and variety retail outlets. However, consumption attitudes, cultural background, and gender are significantly correlated with purchases, with substantially larger effect sizes. The overall results were consistent between estimating the availability of outdoor advertising in the immediate area surrounding the home and along the journey to and from school. There is considerable health promotion policy interest in regulating outdoor advertising around child-serving locations. However, scarce health promotion resources would be better allocated to educational programming that addresses the substantial role of consumption attitudes in affecting adolescent purchasing behaviour, as compared to the considerably weaker impact of outdoor food advertising observed in our analysis.

The COVID-19 pandemic placed considerable stress on restaurants from restrictions placed on their operations, shifting consumer confidence, rapid expansion of remote work arrangements and aggressive uptake of third-party delivery services. Industry reports suggest that restaurants are experiencing a much higher rate of failure in comparison to other sectors of the economy. Restaurant survival was assessed in the Middlesex–London region of Ontario, Canada as of December 2020 using a novel dataset constructed from public health inspection permits, business listings and social media. Binomial logistic regression models were used to determine the association of operational, demographic and land use factors with restaurant survival during the pandemic. Operations-related factors were considerably more predictive of restaurant survival, though some demographic and land use factors suggest that urban processes continued to play a role in restaurant survival. Restaurants that offered in-house delivery and phone-based ordering methods were considerably less likely to close. Restaurants with a table-based service model, drive-through or an alcohol licence were also less likely to close. Restaurants proximal to a concentration of entertainment land uses were more likely to be closed in December 2020. Closed restaurants were not spatially clustered as compared to open restaurants. The pandemic appears to have disrupted established theoretical relationships between people, place, and restaurant success.

Background: The built environment can impact health outcomes. Our purpose was to examine relationships between built environment variables related to physical activity and excess weight in preschoolers. Methods: In this retrospective, population-level study of 4- to 6-year-olds, anthropometric measurements were taken between 2009 and 2017 in Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Based on BMI z-scores (BMIz), children were classified as normal weight (-2 ≤ BMIz <1) or excess weight (BMIz ≥1; overweight and obesity). Physical activity-related built environment variables were calculated (distances to nearest playground, major park, school; street intersection density; number of playgrounds and major parks within an 800 m buffer zone). Binomial logistic regression models estimated associations between physical activity-related built environment variables and excess weight. Results: Our analysis included 140,368 participants (females: n = 69,454; Calgary: n = 84,101). For Calgary, adjusted odds ratios (aORs) showed the odds of excess weight increased 1% for every 100-intersection increase [1.010 (1.006-1.015); p < 0.0001] and 13.6% when there were ≥4 playgrounds (vs. 0 or 1) within an 800 m buffer zone [1.136 (1.037-1.243); p = 0.0059]. For Edmonton, aORs revealed lower odds of excess weight for every 100 m increase in distances between residences to nearest major park [0.991 (0.986-0.996); p = 0.0005] and school [0.992 (0.990-0.995); p < 0.0001]. The odds of excess weight decreased as the number of major parks within the 800 m buffer zone increased from 0 to 1 [0.943 (0.896-0.992); p = 0.023] and from 0 to ≥3 [0.879 (0.773-0.999); p = 0.048]. Conclusion: The physical activity-related built environment was associated with excess weight in preschoolers, although relationships varied between cities that differed demographically and geographically.

Exposure assessment in the context of mobility-oriented health research often is challenged by the type of spatial measurement technique used to estimate exposures to environmental features. The purpose of this study is to compare smartphone global positioning system (GPS), shortest network path mobility, and buffer-based approaches in estimating exposure to outdoor food and beverage advertising among a sample of 154 teenagers involved in the SmartAPPetite study during 2018 in London, Ontario, Canada. Participants were asked to report their home postal code, age, gender identity, ethnicity, and number of purchases they had made at a retail food outlet in the past month. During the same time period, a mobile phone application was used to log their mobility and specifically record when a participant was in close proximity to outdoor advertising. The results of negative binomial regression modelling reveal significant differences in estimates of advertising exposure, and the relationship to self-reported purchasing. Spatial exposure estimation methods showed differences across regression models, with the buffer and observed GPS approaches delivering the best fitting models, depending on the type of retail food outlet. There is a clear need for more robust research of spatial exposure measurement techniques in the context of mobility and food (information) environment research.

This study investigated the pandemic-related modifications to food hospitality businesses in Ontario, Canada and their effects on the health and wellbeing of workers. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 food hospitality employees in Ontario between June 2020 and May 2021 as part of the Food Retail Environment Study for Health and Economic Resiliency (FRESHER). Transcripts were analyzed inductively using grounded theory as a means of allowing themes to be distilled organically from this relatively new area of research. Therapeutic landscapes emerged as a framework for the resultant themes. The three main themes in this analysis are compromised based on the physical, social, and symbolic spaces of a therapeutic landscape: physical aspects of food hospitality businesses as influencers of wellbeing, social relationships as sources of support and stress, and symbols of fear and safety within food hospitality workplaces. Results indicate that, for food hospitality employees, the workplace was an imperfect therapeutic landscape with a mix of benefits and threats to wellbeing. Further study is needed to understand how these spaces might be reconstructed to better promote wellbeing.

Exposure assessment in the context of mobility-oriented health research often is challenged by the type of spatial measurement technique used to estimate exposures to environmental features. The purpose of this study is to compare smartphone global positioning system (GPS), shortest network path mobility, and buffer-based approaches in estimating exposure to outdoor food and beverage advertising among a sample of 154 teenagers involved in the SmartAPPetite study during 2018 in London, Ontario, Canada. Participants were asked to report their home postal code, age, gender identity, ethnicity, and number of purchases they had made at a retail food outlet in the past month. During the same time period, a mobile phone application was used to log their mobility and specifically record when a participant was in close proximity to outdoor advertising. The results of negative binomial regression modelling reveal significant differences in estimates of advertising exposure, and the relationship to self-reported purchasing. Spatial exposure estimation methods showed differences across regression models, with the buffer and observed GPS approaches delivering the best fitting models, depending on the type of retail food outlet. There is a clear need for more robust research of spatial exposure measurement techniques in the context of mobility and food (information) environment research.