LAUSR

Objectives: This study examined contextual variables of location, vegetation, weather, safety, and traffic as predictors of affect, feeling states, and activity in order to gain preliminary understanding of relationships relevant to adolescent health. Design: This is an ecological momentary assessment pilot study of adolescents. Method: Twenty‐six adolescents ages 13–18 completed four daily surveys on a smartphone and wore an accelerometer over 20 days. Surveys collected data about context, affect, and feeling states while the accelerometer provided objective activity measurements. Results: Significant relationships emerged between weather and MVPA, sedentary behavior, positive affect, negative affect, energy, and fatigue. Findings were also significant for the contextual predictor of location with sedentary behavior, positive affect, negative affection, energy, and fatigue. Within‐person (WP) vegetation was associated with positive affect and energy and WP traffic was associated with positive affect, negative affect, and energy. WP safety and between‐person safety were both significantly related to negative affect. Conclusions: Ecological momentary assessment of contextual variables may be important in understanding these variables' associations with psychological and activity variables, and should continue to be measured in this way to inform comprehensive health behavior models. HighlightsExamined location, vegetation, weather, safety, traffic as predictors of activity.Adolescents (n = 26) completed four daily surveys and wore accelerometers for 20 days.Context variables were significantly related to activity and psychological states.Context variables may be important predictors of activity in adolescents.A preliminary step towards comprehensive model of health behavior and activity.