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Weather impacts on leisure activities in Halifax, Nova Scotia

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Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of daily atmospheric weather conditions on daily leisure activity engagement, with a focus on physically active leisure. The methods capitalize on time diary data that were collected in Halifax, Nova Scotia to calculate objective measures of leisure activity engagement. Daily meteorological data from Environment Canada and daily sunrise and sunset times from the National Research Council of Canada are used to develop objective measures of the natural atmospheric environment. The time diary data were merged with the meteorological data in order to quantify the statistical association between daily weather conditions and the type, participation rate, frequency, and duration of leisure activity engagement. The results indicate that inclement and uncomfortable weather conditions, especially relating to thermal comfort and mechanical comfort, pose barriers to physically active leisure engagement, while promoting sedentary and home-based leisure activities. Overall, daily weather conditions exhibit modest, but significant, effects on leisure activity engagement; the strongest associations being for outdoor active sports and outdoor active leisure time budgets. In conclusion, weather conditions influence the type, participation rate, frequency, and duration of leisure activity engagement, which is an important consideration for health-promotion programming.

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Notes

  1. Coaching has been included within the civic and voluntary category due to a low frequency of activity episodes (n=25).

  2. “Outdoors away from home” is one of the location codes used to select active sports that occurred in outdoor locations (e.g. soccer field, baseball diamond). Fortunately, the time diary survey also captured text descriptions of location, because “other place” was used to represent many indoor and outdoor locations, such as parks and sports fields.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geography and Earth Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

    Jamie E. L. Spinney

  2. Department of Geography, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

    Hugh Millward

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  1. Jamie E. L. Spinney
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  2. Hugh Millward
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Correspondence to Jamie E. L. Spinney.

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Spinney, J.E.L., Millward, H. Weather impacts on leisure activities in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Int J Biometeorol 55, 133–145 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-010-0319-z

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