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Background: The schoolyard environment provides key opportunities to promote physical activity and socioemotional development for children. Schoolyards can also serve as a community park resource outside of school hours. We aimed to: (i) implement and evaluate reliability of the System for Observing Outdoor Play Environments in Neighborhood Schools (SOOPEN), (ii) assess schoolyard use by children during recess and community members of all ages outside of school hours, and (iii) investigate relationships of schoolyard and children´s group characteristics with physical activity levels and prosocial interactions. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, we observed student and community visitor behavior using SOOPEN at three urban elementary schoolyards in Tacoma, Washington, USA, prior to renovations intended to expand each facility's use as a community park in neighborhoods with poor park access. We assessed interrater reliability using intraclass correlation coefficients and described current levels of schoolyard use (at the group level), physical activity, and prosocial behavior. Physical activity was assessed on a five-point scale and dichotomized to indicate moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Social interactions were coded as prosocial, antisocial, or neutral. We examined associations of selected schoolyard features and group characteristics with group MVPA and prosocial behavior during recess using modified Poisson regression to estimate prevalence ratios (PR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). Results: We observed a total of 981 activity-defined, informal groups in the schoolyards, and achieved good to excellent interrater reliability using SOOPEN. Community use of the schoolyards during evenings and weekends was limited (n = 56 groups). During 26, 25–50 min recess periods (n = 833 groups), 19% of groups were engaged in MVPA. Schoolyard areas with paved surfaces were associated with more MVPA (PR = 1.52, 95% CI: 1.04, 2.23) compared to field/grass areas; supervised groups were associated with less MVPA than groups not directly supervised by an adult (PR = 0.59, 95% CI: 0.36, 0.96). Schoolyard characteristics were not associated with prosocial behavior. Mixed-gender groups were associated with more MVPA and more prosocial behavior. Conclusions: Our study using SOOPEN, a reliable new activity observation tool, highlights the multi-dimensional dynamics of physical activity and social interactions in schoolyards, which could be leveraged to promote healthy behaviors during and outside of school hours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVES: Assess how family stressors (including structural stressors, social determinants of health inequities, and parent psychological distress) relate to media rule implementation and problematic child media use during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. METHODS: Nationally representative survey of 1000 United States parents with at least one 6 to 17 year old child was conducted in October through November 2020. RESULTS: Problematic use was greater in families where parents were employed full time, present in the home (eg, working from home), had low levels or formal educational attainment, and were experiencing more psychological distress. Although there was a small decline in the number of media-related rules implemented during the pandemic (fewer parents enforced screen limits on weekdays or weekends or limited screen use at mealtimes), there was no association between rule implementation and problematic media use. CONCLUSIONS: Family stressors were associated with problematic child media use during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. As we emerge from the pandemic, it will be important to help parents adjust their family's media practices cognizant of the fact that additional children may have developed problematic screen use behaviors. Such efforts should center the role of structural and social determinants of health inequities on the stressors that families experience and that impact media use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]