FY22

Do married and/or cohabiting individuals fare better during the COVID-19 pandemic? Satisfaction with life and depression among adult twins in the United States

Tsang S, Avery AR, Duncan GE Due to social distancing measures implemented to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic, individuals are spending more time isolated at home with limited physical social interactions. The current study investigated whether marriage and/or cohabitation is associated with satisfaction with life and depression among 732 adult same-sex twin pairs (monozygotic and dizygotic) […]

Changes in physical activity levels and mental health during COVID-19: Prospective findings among adult twin pairs

Duncan GE, Avery AR, Tsang S, Williams BD, Seto E. Background Physical distancing and other COVID-19 pandemic mitigation strategies have negatively impacted physical activity (PA) levels and mental health in cross-sectional studies. The purpose of this study was to investigate associations between changes in PA and mental health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic, following implementation […]

Reassessing relationships between appetite and adiposity in people at risk of obesity: a twin study using fMRI

Sewaybricker LE, Melhorn SJ, Rosenbaum JL, Askren MK, Tyagi V, Webb MF, De Leon MRB, Grabowski TJ, Schur EA Background Neuroimaging studies suggest that appetitive drive is enhanced in obesity. Objective To test if appetitive drive varies in direct proportion to the level of body adiposity after accounting for genetic factors that contribute to both […]

Differences in Stress and Anxiety Among Women With and Without Children in the Household During the Early Months of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Avery AR, Tsang S, Seto EYW, Duncan GE The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns have had a disproportionate impact on parents of children under 18, particularly women. Mandatory school closures and loss of childcare resulted in parents balancing work, teaching, and childcare needs. A number of studies have examined changes in mental health of parents, […]

Educational attainment of same-sex and opposite-sex dizygotic twins: An individual-level pooled study of 19 twin cohorts

Silventoinen K, Bogl LH, Jelenkovic A, et al. Comparing twins from same- and opposite-sex pairs can provide information on potential sex differences in a variety of outcomes, including socioeconomic-related outcomes such as educational attainment. It has been suggested that this design can be applied to examine the putative role of intrauterine exposure to testosterone for […]

GPS-based built environment measures associated with adult physical activity

Boakye KA, Amram O, Schuna JM, Duncan GE, Hystad P. Studies often rely on home locations to access built environment (BE) influences on physical activity (PA). We use GPS and accelerometer data collected for 288 individuals over a two-week period to examine eight GPS-derived BE characteristics and moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) and light-to-moderate-vigorous PA (LMVPA). NDVI, […]

Measurement of neighborhood-based physical activity bouts

Duncan GE, Hurvitz PM, Moudon AV, Avery AR, Tsang S. This study examined how buffer type (shape), size, and the allocation of activity bouts inside buffers that delineate the neighborhood spatially produce different estimates of neighborhood-based physical activity. A sample of 375 adults wore a global positioning system (GPS) data logger and accelerometer over 2 […]