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Physical Activity Levels And Depressive Disorder: A Cross-Sectional Sample Of Vermont Adults, Paige Stefanak, Obichukwu Ezennia, Marley Jurgensmeyer, Jessica Dubetsky, Elise Carlson

Master of Public Health Culminating Projects

Objective: To investigate the association between meeting physical activity (PA) recommendations and having ever been told of having a depressive disorder in a cross-sectional sample of Vermont adults.

Methods: Study participants (n = 11,429) were Vermont residents that had answered all required questions from 2015 and 2017 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) telephone surveys. Descriptive and binary logistic analyses were run with PA as the exposure variable and depression as the outcome variable.

Results: Study participants were 44.5% males; 93.2% white/non-Hispanic; 67.6% with some college or more; 46% age 60 or over; 45.8% employed for wages and retired. A …

Quantifying The Health Benefits Of Nature Contact In Cities Across The Us, Aaron J. Schwartz

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Urbanization, the rise of sedentary lifestyles, and increasing screen time have led to a significant decline in nature contact, or how much time people spend in greenspace. At the same time, urban populations are experiencing declining physical and mental well-being. While nature contact has been shown to have a variety of health benefits, these benefits have not been well-quantified or verified across different geographic contexts. In addition, there is a lack of clarity around how the benefits of nature contact vary temporally (e.g. seasonally) and between different types of greenspaces. In this dissertation, I investigate the health benefits of urban …

Measuring Mental Health Stigma On Twitter, Anne Marie Stupinski

UVM Patrick Leahy Honors College Senior Theses

Major depression is a serious health issue afflicting hundreds of millions of people each year, with many going untreated due to the intense stigma surrounding mental illness. In this project, we explore perceptions of mental health on social media, attempting to quantify the level of stigma present on Twitter and track how it has changed in the past decade. To explore trends in the appearance of various words and phrases, we collect roughly 10% of all tweets starting in 2008, process English tweets into 1-, 2-, and 3-grams, and determine their usage frequency and rank. Using these values, we can …

Applications Of Wearable Sensors In Delivering Biologically Relevant Signals, Jordyn Scism

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

With continued advancements in wearable technologies, the applications for their use are growing. Wearable sensors can be found in smart watches, fitness trackers, and even our cellphones. The common applications in everyday life are usually step counting, activity tracking, and heart rate monitoring. However, researchers have developed ways to use these similar sensors for clinically relevant diagnostic measures, as well as, improved athletic training and performance. Two areas of interest for the use of wearable sensors are mental health diagnostics in children and heart rate monitoring during intense physical activity from new locations, which are discussed further in this thesis. …