Scientific Meeting 2023 - Lightning Talks Day 1

Monday, March 13
11:40am to 12:30pm

Presenter: Indira D'Souza

COVID mitigation strategies are associated with better physical activity and diet in a cohort of pregnant people with overweight and obesity: Findings from a racially/ethnically diverse sample

Smith, Paige; Phipps, Jennifer; Liu, Siwei; D'Souza, Indira; Satish, Nikita; Ha, Stephanie; Gilliland, Paige; Simmons, Leigh Ann

Purpose: Using a novel viral respiratory illness mitigation scale (VRIMS), we assessed the relationship between COVID-mitigation behaviors, physical activity, diet, and race/ethnicity in a cohort of pregnant people with overweight and obesity from the Goals for Reaching Optimal Wellness (GROWell) trial. We hypothesized that people who tried to avoid respiratory illness would also have better health behaviors and that our marginalized participants would have overall higher VRIMS scores.

Methods: All actively enrolled GROWell participants (N=369) completed a baseline survey that included COVID-mitigation behavior questions, a Rapid Eating Assessment for Participants (REAP) survey, Pregnancy Physical Activity Questionnaire (PPAQ), and a demographics survey. We performed a correlation analysis between the VRIMS score, physical activity, and diet to assess our hypothesis at this baseline timepoint. General linear models were used to assess the effect of race/ethnicity.

Results: More than 60% of the participants engaged in at least 5 out of the 8 illness-mitigating strategies (e.g., mask wearing, hand-washing; M = 4.78, SD = 1.7). VRIMS scores were positively correlated with diet (r = .14, p < .01) and total physical activity (r = .10, p < .05). Both African American/Black (beta = .89, p < .05) and Asian (beta = 1.00, p < .001) participants reported higher VRIMS scores than White participants; additionally, Hispanic participants reported higher VRIMS scores than Non-Hispanic participants (beta = .43, p < .05).

Conclusion: GROWell participants who engaged in more illness-mitigating strategies also engaged in more physical activity and had higher quality diets. Maternal outcomes in the United States are declining, particularly in marginalized communities; our data suggest that this is not due to lack of physical activity, poor diet or poor illness-mitigation strategies. These findings support existing work that shows racism and other structural determinants of health are more important for maternal health than health behaviors.