Sarangi Punyabeet, Manoj M, Bhosley Manisha
Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, 110016, India.
Ex-Research Intern (under Summer Research Fellowship Program), Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, 110016, India.
J Transp Health. 2022 Jun;25:101383. doi: 10.1016/j.jth.2022.101383. Epub 2022 May 3.
Covid-19 pandemic has impacted individuals' time allocation decisions. As it is known that university students display behaviors different from the general population, very few studies have examined their activity participation and time allocation behavior during the pandemic. The present study investigates the changes in time allocations to sedentary, physically active, and eat-sleep activities before and during the pandemic.
The study hypothesizes that active mode (walk, bicycle) and transit users would compensate for the physical efforts by increasing physical activities at home during the lockdown. Students' perception of personal well-being, anxiety, and individual leisure during the pandemic and their impacts on time allocation decisions after controlling for demographic variables and temporal effects are also explored. A pan India behavioral data of 203 samples collected using an online survey conducted between May to July 2020, during India's lockdown phase, is used for analysis. A series of segmented analyses (using ANOVA's and Kruskal-Wallis Test) and empirical modeling (linear mixed-effect regression) were conducted based on the time use distribution.
Findings showed that university students from low-income households and students who own a bicycle show a higher tendency to spend time in physical activities during lockdown periods. Students accessing college using active modes (before lockdown) allocate less time to sedentary and eat-sleep activities than physical activities during the lockdown period. Students' perception of Leisure items among those who use active modes is significantly different from those of private and public mode users.
From a policy viewpoint, such investigation would help implicitly understand and publicize the health benefits of active modes and transit and encourage their use. For instance, policymakers and transport planners can temporarily allocate less-used motorized streets (due to the pandemic) to students who prefer walking and cycling as universities still function online in India.
新冠疫情影响了个人的时间分配决策。众所周知，大学生表现出与普通人群不同的行为，很少有研究考察他们在疫情期间的活动参与和时间分配行为。本研究调查了疫情之前和期间久坐、体育活动以及饮食睡眠活动的时间分配变化。
该研究假设，在封锁期间，采用主动出行模式（步行、骑自行车）的人和乘坐公共交通的人会通过增加在家中的体育活动来弥补体力消耗。还探讨了学生在疫情期间对个人幸福感、焦虑和个人休闲的认知，以及在控制人口统计学变量和时间效应后，这些因素对时间分配决策的影响。分析使用了2020年5月至7月印度封锁期间通过在线调查收集的203个样本的全印度行为数据。基于时间使用分布进行了一系列分段分析（使用方差分析和克鲁斯卡尔-沃利斯检验）和实证建模（线性混合效应回归）。
研究结果表明，来自低收入家庭的大学生和拥有自行车的学生在封锁期间进行体育活动的时间倾向更高。在封锁期间，采用主动出行模式（封锁前）去大学的学生分配在久坐和饮食睡眠活动上的时间比体育活动的时间少。主动出行模式使用者对休闲项目的认知与私人和公共交通模式使用者的认知有显著差异。
从政策角度来看，此类调查将有助于隐性地理解和宣传主动出行模式和公共交通的健康益处，并鼓励人们使用它们。例如，由于疫情，一些机动车道较少被使用，政策制定者和交通规划者可以将这些道路临时分配给喜欢步行和骑自行车的学生，因为印度的大学仍在进行线上教学。
