Using time-use diaries to track changing behavior across successive stages of COVID-19 social restrictions

Abstract

How did people change their behavior over the different phases of the UK COVID-19 restrictions, and how did these changes affect their risk of being exposed to infection? Time-use diary surveys are unique in providing a complete chronicle of daily behavior: 24-h continuous records of the populations’ activities, their social context, and their location. We present results from four such surveys, collected in real time from representative UK samples, both before and at three points over the course of the current pandemic. Comparing across the four waves, we find evidence of substantial changes in the UK population’s behavior relating to activities, locations, and social context. We assign different levels of risk to combinations of activities, locations, and copresence to compare risk-related behavior across successive “lockdowns.” We find evidence that during the second lockdown (November 2020), there was an increase in high-risk behaviors relative to the first (starting March 2020). This increase is shown to be associated with more paid work time in the workplace. At a time when capacity is still limited both in respect of immunization and track–trace technology, governments must continue to rely on changes in people’s daily behaviors to contain the spread of COVID-19 and similar viruses. Time-use diary information of this type, collected in real time across the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, can provide policy makers with information to assess and quantify changes in daily behaviors and the impact they are likely to have on overall behavioral-associated risks.

Changes in physical activity and sedentary time in United States adults in response to COVID-19

“…These changes indicate reductions in time spent in retail locations (-17%), transit stations (-34%) and workplaces (-26%) and more time in residential locations (+9%) [7]. Some, largely but not entirely, cross-sectional studies have indicated more dramatic changes in time use at specific times in the pandemic [5] and significant differences between men and women in time spent on necessities and household activities [1]. However, these studies were not optimized to assess levels of physical activity and sedentary time, a strength of our study since even small changes in daily physical activity can have a large public health impact at the population level [27].…”

“…Lockdowns early in the pandemic and ongoing community-based mitigation strategies have resulted in changes in how people spend their time in physically active and sedentary behaviors each day within occupational, transportation, educational, caring, and leisure and recreational domains. While initial pandemic lockdowns appeared to be associated with a significant reduction in daily physical activity [2][3][4], our understanding of longer-term effects of ongoing and renewed mitigation efforts is still evolving [5]. This could be an enduring public health concern because excessive sedentary time and inadequate moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity are associated with increased risk of early mortality, cardiometabolic disease, and certain cancers [6].…”

Social Restrictions and Well-Being: Disentangling the Mechanisms

“…These diaries include detailed information on how, where and with whom individuals spend their time throughout the 24-hour day. Continuous diaries, like CaDDI, are considered the golden standard and to be preferred to survey questions to measure changes in individuals' behaviour because they reduce recall issues and are less affected by social desirability bias (Gershuny et al, 2019;Sullivan et al, 2021).…”

MyTimeUse: An Online Implementation of the Day-Reconstruction Method

“…Social challenges-including recessions, climate disasters, war, and pandemics-are characterized in part by (often undesired) alterations to daily life (Sullivan et al, 2021). Obligatory time in paid work, household and care activities, and biological necessities (sleep, grooming) structure how and with whom individuals spend time (Robinson & Godbey, 1997).…”

“…The advantages of online research have led to a proliferation of research on COVID-19 (e.g., Chung et al 2021;Kelley, Evans, and Kelley 2020;Park et al 2020;Petts, Carlson, and Pepin 2020), yet the study of daily life through the kinds of tools available on general purpose survey platforms is highly limiting. Researchers are typically restricted to asking participants about their time use in broad, stylized measures resulting in biased and limited data on a small number of daily behaviors and interactions (Juster et al, 2003;Kan & Pudney, 2008;Sullivan et al, 2021). The specificity provided by time diaries is largely unavailable on platforms such as Qualtrics due to a lack of support for the complex design of time diaries.…”