{"doi":"10.1371/journal.pone.0340687","title":"A pilot effectiveness study of a just-in-time micro-randomized controlled trial on the physical activity and sedentary time of young children and their parents: The active family m-health intervention","abstract":"<jats:sec id=\"sec001\">\n                    <jats:title>Background</jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Parents play a critical role in influencing their young children’s physical activity (PA) and sedentary time (ST). Despite this, many young children (aged 3-4y) and their parents are insufficiently active and engage in high amounts of ST. M-health interventions targeting PA and ST have seldom been tested in this population. The objective of this study was to examine the effectiveness and acceptability of the Active Family m-health intervention on the PA and ST of young children and their parents.</jats:p>\n                  </jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec id=\"sec002\">\n                    <jats:title>Methods</jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Twenty-five stay-at-home parent-child dyads from Canada took part in the 2-week just-in-time micro-randomized controlled trial. Parents received seven text message prompts per day, where they were randomized to receive either a micro-intervention (activity suggestion) or control (no suggestion). Parents and children wore ActiGraph accelerometers to measure ST, light [LPA], and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity [MVPA]. Parents also completed a short online acceptability survey. A centred and weighted least square regression was used to analyze the effect of activity suggestions on the 60-min ST, LPA, and MVPA of parents and children following suggestion randomization. Descriptive statistics and content analysis were used to analyze acceptability survey responses.</jats:p>\n                  </jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec id=\"sec003\">\n                    <jats:title>Results</jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Micro-interventions were not effective at changing children’s or parent’s proximal ST (d = 0.01, p = .878; d = −0.09, p = .485, respectively), LPA (d = 0.03, p = .714; d = 0.03, p = .729, respectively), or MVPA (d = −0.05, p = .511; d = 0.10, p = .480, respectively). Interventions became more effective at increasing MVPA over time for parents (b = 0.47, 95%CI = 0.12, 0.83, p = .013). Among children, intervention effectiveness varied by contextual factors (e.g., weather). The intervention was largely acceptable, appropriate, and feasible for parents, though they did offer suggestions for improvement.</jats:p>\n                  </jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec id=\"sec004\">\n                    <jats:title>Conclusions</jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Overall, micro-interventions did not significantly change parents or young children’s proximal movement. Though, this approach showed promise for increasing parent’s MVPA over time and for supporting children’s activity under specific conditions.</jats:p>\n                  </jats:sec>","journal":"PLOS One","year":2026,"id":640907,"datarank":0.10397207708399181,"base_score":0.6931471805599453,"endowment":0.6931471805599453,"self_citation_contribution":0.10397207708399181,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.10397207708399181,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":null,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":false,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":null,"fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1665969,"name":"Matthew Bourke","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1665973,"name":"Bayley V. Inniss","orcid":"0009-0004-6431-3599","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1665981,"name":"Manvir Ahluwalia","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1665983,"name":"Patricia Tucker","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1665965,"name":"Sophie M. Phillips","orcid":"0000-0003-4140-8013","position":0,"is_corresponding":false}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-08-07T14:21:46.854077Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}