Social Determinants and Measurement of Adolescent Physical Activity Levels

ESRC-funded final-year PhD student in Sociology / Health Sciences

Research Fellow at the Centre for Time Use Research, UCL

About my research:

Adolescence is an important developmental phase for children to learn how to adopt and maintain a healthy lifestyle, in which physical activity constitutes a major aspect. Children growing up in diverse households are more likely to face time constraints and lack financial resources, parental involvement and general support towards activities that aim to promote a healthier lifestyle, such as physical activity.

My thesis consists of a systematic review of the impact of family structure on adolescent physical activity levels and a SEM analysis of the MCS Wave 6 survey, time diary and accelerometer data, to explore differences between physical activity measures based on different family structures and other potential confounding factors. I am also conducting a non-response analysis of the time-diary instrument of the MCS Wave 6.

My research is supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Midlands Graduate School DTP.

Research interests:

Social determinants of health; Adolescent physical activity levels; Physical activity measurement; Time diary research; Accelerometery; Structural equation modelling (SEM)

Publications:

Mylona E. and Gershuny, J. (2023). What can instantaneous enjoyment tell us about life satisfaction? [online]. Available at: https://whatworkswellbeing.org/resources/time-use-data-what-can-instantaneous-enjoyment-tell-us-about-life-satisfaction/

Mylona, E., Kletter, M., M Jones, H., Murphy, M., Lampard, R. and Oyebode, O. (2022). The association between family structure and adolescent physical activity levels: a systematic review. The Lancet Meeting Abstracts, 400(S66).

Full article currently available at: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.04.23292220v1

Mylona, E. (2022). Technical note: Data cleaning and management of the Click and Drag Diary Instrument (CaDDI) time diary data [online]. Available at: https://www.timeuse.org/programmes-for-using-timeuse-data

Chatzitheochari, S. and Mylona, E. (2022). Does Diary Mode Matter in Time-Use Research? Journal of Time Use Research [online], Article 1. Available at: https://jtur.iatur.org/home/article/06be4cd6-d12b-4b04-97bc-7e4254c3f89e

Chatzitheochari, S. and Mylona, E. (2021). Data Quality in Web and App Diaries: A Person-Level Comparison, Journal of Time Use Research [online], Article 2. Available at: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/sociology/staff/chatzitheochari/publications/jtur_21_2-1.pdf 

Murphy, M., Mensah, D., Mylona, E. and Oyebode, O. (2021). Acceptability and feasibility of strategies to promote healthy dietary choices in UK secondary school canteens: a qualitative study. BMC Research Notes, 14(1).

Dunatchik, A., Cartagena-Farias, J., Griggs, J. and Mylona, E. (2017). Women’s hour Report: The best places in Britain for Women [online]. Available at: https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/bbc-radio-4-womans-hour-best-place-analysis.pdf Media coverage: BBC, Insider UK, Independent

Conferences

UK Public Health Science Conference, Glasgow, Scotland, November 2022: The association between family structure and adolescent physical activity levels: a systematic review

44th International Association for Time Use Research Conference, Montreal, Canada, August 2022: What are the consequences of daily activity patterns for longer-term affectual dispositions?

43rd International Association for Time Use Research Conference, Barcelona, Spain, October 2021: What Matters When it Comes to Adolescent Active Travel Times? Findings from the UK Millennium Cohort Study Age 14 Time Diary and Survey Data.

10TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SOCIAL SCIENCE METHODOLOGY (RC33), Online, September 2021: Systematic non-response socio-demographic differences in time-diary data collection: Evidence from the UK Millennium Cohort Study.

ESRC MGS Conference, Online, June 2021: Adolescent Physical Activity Levels and Family Structure: Comparison of Self-reported and Objective Data.

Teaching/Supervision:

Fellow of the HEA

Weekly Quantitative Biology mentor in the School of Life Sciences, University of Warwick, October - December 2022

Undergraduate Support Scheme (URSS) co-supervisor, Warwick Medical School, June-August 2021 and 2022

Case-based learning (CBL) Facilitator, UG Year 1 (Level 4) Warwick Medical School, January-March 2022

Co-supervisor in MA Statistics (Applied) dissertation, Department of Statistics, University of Warwick, June-September 2021

Visiting Lecturer, Sociology of Health (HEU415), UG Year 1 (Level 4), Department of Arts, Humanities and Human Sciences, Newman University, February - April 2021

Visiting Lecturer, Sociology of Health and Illness (HEF408), FdEd, Department of Arts, Humanities and Human Sciences, Newman University, September - December 2020

Guest Lecturer, 'Childhood and Adolescent Obesity' in Researching Inequality (SO904), Master's (Level 7), Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, November 2020.

Sessional tutor on Practice and Interpretation of Quantitative Methods (SO243), UG Year 2 (Level 5), Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, January - April 2020

Previous studies:

BA Sociology and Quantitative Methods (Hons), First class, University of Warwick (2015-2018)

MA Social Science Research (Part of 1+3 ESRC PhD studentship), University of Warwick (2018-2019)

Additional training/courses/qualifications:

Introduction to machine learning for casual analysis using observational data, NCRM, University of Southampton, June 2021

Researching young people, University of Birmingham, ESRC Advance Training, June 2021

Using smartphone sensors, apps and wearables in social science research, NCRM, University of Southampton, May 2021

Structural Equation Modelling (POLI4123), University of Nottingham, ESRC Advance Training, April 2021

Multilevel Modelling for Social Research (POLI4198), University of Nottingham, ESRC Advance Training, April 2021

Systematic Reviews (NURS4015), University of Nottingham, ESRC Advance Training, April 2021

An Introduction to Understanding Society using Stata, University of Essex (ISER), November 2019