Social distancing measures implemented by governments worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic have proven an effective intervention to control the transmission of SARS-CoV-2. There is a growing literature on predictors of adherence behaviours to social distancing measures, however, there are no comprehensive insights into the nature and types of non-adherence behaviours. To address this gap in the literature, we studied non-adherence in terms of counts of infringements and people’s accounts on their behaviours in a sample of North London residents. We focused on the following social distancing rules: keeping 2 mts. distancing, meeting family and friends, and going out for non-essential reasons. A mixed-methods explanatory sequential design was used comprising an online survey  followed by semi-structured in-depth interviews held with a purposive sample of survey respondents . A negative binomial regression model (quantitative) and Framework Analysis  were undertaken.681 individuals completed the survey, and 30 individuals were interviewed. We integrated survey and interview findings following three levels of the Social Ecological model: individual, interpersonal and community levels. We identified non-adherence behaviours as unintentional  and intentional (deliberate decision). Unintentional adherence was reported by interviewees as, lack of controllability in keeping 2 mts. distancing, environmental constraints, social responsibility towards the community and feeling low risk. Intentional non-adherence was statistically associated with and reported as lack of trust in Government, support from friends, and lack of knowledge about rules. In addition, interviewees reported individual risk assessment and decision making on the extent to following the rules, and perceived lack of adherence in the local area. Our findings indicate that unintentional and intentional non-adherence should be improved by Government partnerships with local communities to build trust in social distancing measures; tailored messaging to young adults emphasising the need of protecting others whilst clarifying the risk of transmission; and ensuring COVID-secured environments by working with environmental health officers. On March 23, 2020, the UK government announced a new set of mitigation measures to slow the spread of COVID-19. New regulations required the public to observe social distancing (SD) by staying at home and only leaving to exercise once a day, to shop for essential items, to seek and provide medical assistance, and to travel to work if this was not possible from home. People were asked to minimise the time spent outdoors and to keep a minimum distance of 2 mts. away from others outside their household. In addition, a shielding policy for extremely vulnerable people as well as self-isolation measures for those with symptoms were also introduced , social norms , perceived threat , attitude towards norms and trust in government, and intentions). Interpersonal level factors included social support . Community level factors covered were local and environmental area perceptions. The interview guide is available in All interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim. Participants have been anonymised, given identifier codes, and age ranges. For example, F02, WEG, 35+ means that interviewee is a female, interview number 02, White ethnic group, age range 35–39 years old. Age range such as ‘40s’ means [40–44 years old]; ‘O’ next to a number (gender other); ‘OEG’ (Other ethnic group); ‘BEG’ (Black ethnic group); ‘AEG’ (Asian ethnic group).The interview guide was reviewed by key stakeholders from local Public Health, Healthwatch and NHS Northcentral London CCG with whom quantitative findings were discussed during a workshop. Feedback was incorporated into the interview guide before recruitment started. Due to the tight schedule of this research, it was not possible to involve the general public in the development of the interview or survey instruments.Framework analysis  was usedIn this paper, integration of both strands of the mixed-methods design occurred at three levels: design, data collection and interpretation. For the latter, we merged results from both sets of data analyses known as ‘mixing during interpretation’ in the Discussion section . In the Ethical approval for this study was granted by London Metropolitan University Research Ethics Committee (reference: GSBL200401).A participant information sheet (PIS) was provided, and informed consent (IC) was obtained from all participants before completion of the online survey, where they needed to indicate that they had read through and understood the conditions of their participation before continuing with the questionnaire. For qualitative data collection, PIS and IC were provided by email with consent forms orally recorded during the interviews or retuned by email as both methods of recording consent were approved by the Ethics Committee.There were a total of 681 valid responses to the study’s questionnaire. There were 20 responses from participants living in locations other than the specified North London boroughs, which were removed from the dataset. The characteristics of the final sample are reported in As reported in Simple analysis. The differences in means of infringements between categories of each categorical explanatory variable are reported in S1 Table in rs(681) = -.337, p = .000). There was a weak, negative correlation between age (r (681) = -.104, p = .006), social responsibility (rs(681) = -.097, p = .012) control over leaving the house (rs(681) = -.208, p = .000), control over others’ distancing (rs(681) = -.217, p = .000) control over responsibilities (rs(681) = -.204, p = .000), normative pressure from family (rs(681) = -.117, p = .002), normative pressure from friends and infringements (rs(681) = -.222, p = .000) and total infringements. There was a weak, positive correlation between support from friends and infringements (rs(681) = .097, p = .011).The associations between numerical explanatory variables and infringements are reported in S2 Table in Multiple analysis. The negative binomial regression model was statistically significant, χ2(57) = 129.131, p = .000. A Pearson Chi-Square goodness of fit test returned a value greater than 0.5 (χ2 (623) = .628), indicating that the model fits the data well. The results of the negative binomial regression are reported in Intentional SD infringements are a subscale of the previously analysed outcome variable of all SD infringements. As detailed below, predictive factors differed when intentional SD infringements were examined in isolation from all SD infringements in comparison to when SD infringements were examined as a whole.Simple analysis. The differences in means of intentional infringements between categories of each categorical explanatory variable are reported in S1 Table in rs(681) = .409, p = .000). There was a weak, negative correlation between knowledge (r (681) = -.08, p = .036), social responsibility (rs(681) = -.147, p = .000), control over leaving the house, (rs(681) = -.1, p = .009), control over others’ distancing (rs(681) = -.09, p = .019), control over responsibilities (rs(681) = -.13, p = .001), normative pressure from family (rs(681) = -.189, p = .000) and normative pressure from friends (rs(681) = -.21, p = .000) and intentional infringements. There was a weak, positive correlation between self-interest and intentional infringements (rs(681) = .143, p = .000).The associations between numerical explanatory variables and intentional infringements are reported in S2 Table in Multiple analysis. The negative binomial regression model was statistically significant, χ2(57) = 308.916, p = .000. A Pearson Chi-Square goodness of fit test returned a value greater than 0.5 (χ2 (623) = 1.837), indicating that the model fits the data well. The results of the negative binomial regression are reported in Summary of quantitate results. When holding other factors constant, vulnerable health, intention to socially distance, control over others’ distancing, normative pressure from neighbours and support from friends were associated with both all SD infringements and the sub-scale of intentional SD infringements. A factor that was uniquely associated with all SD infringements is control over leaving the house. Factors that were uniquely associated with intentional SD infringements when considered in isolation were: religion, employment status, trust in government, lockdown phase, COVID-19 and SD knowledge, social responsibility and normative pressure from friends, from which it can be inferred that intentional non-adherence in isolation is distinct and more complex than all infringements.A total of 32 individuals responded to the interview invitation, and after agreeing a time for a call, two were unavailable, leaving 30 participants’ data for analysis. Interviews lasted a mean of 40 minutes (range 23–80 minutes). Demographic characteristics are reported in ‘I would have gone crazy if I couldn’t go running’ ; similarly, another mentioned, ‘definitely, I had to leave, I couldn’t stay at home’ .Individual level factors are related to intrapersonal psychological constructs such as perceived ability and controllability to perform the behaviour as well as attitudes, priorities, and decision processes towards the rules. Amongst these, the challenges of staying at home, to which many participants found harder than keeping 2 mts. distancing, was associated with perceived difficulties to perform the behaviour (self-efficacy). Participants referred to emotions and personality traits  as well as to house space . This led many men, in particular, and of all ages to leave home for unpermitted reasons, such as exercising more times than it was permitted, or for longer periods, or driving or cycling longer distances than permitted during the full lockdown period. Many argued that they found a ‘safe way’ of doing it, others referred only to the positive impact on their mental health. Someone walking in the day and running in the night, commented: On the other hand, inability to keep physical distance was expressed by many as frustrating (lack of controllability) in particular with regard to people’s ‘lack of space awareness’ when shopping or walking on narrow pavements. A few participants who worked outside the home were also concerned about coming into close contact with people. There were also situations of lack of controllability reported by individuals living in shared accommodation for whom leaving the house for exercise and volunteering was a way of regaining self and peer-esteem. One of them commented in relation to his outings:‘It kind of got me out of their way [friends] and is quite weird when you’re the only one self-employed and not working. After a month, actually, one of them got furloughed as well so that made it a lot easier, but the other two worked [from home] all the way through lockdown’ .Another individual living with his family and a shielding wife stated they could not follow the SD rules provided for shielding people given the size of their flat.The majority of informants from the young and adult groups felt they were likely to catch COVID-19, many felt they had caught it previously, a few considered work exposure and living with a key worker as a ‘strong likelihood’, while others thought of the high transmissibility of the virus and contact with people as being ‘inevitable’:‘I think I might have had it. I think I might get it, but I am not worried because I am relatively young’ .‘Yes, I’m likely to catch it. So much unknow about it so everybody can catch it’ .Young people thought that being ‘young, healthy and fit’ made them unlikely to be severely affected by the disease, although a few knew of people who were young and seriously ill. In the adult group, those having mild underlying health issues were concerned about long-COVID (severity); whilst the older group felt less likely to catch COVID-19 due to ‘taking precautions’, and at the same time, many said that it was a ‘lottery’. Those that were clinically vulnerable were more likely to feel both susceptible and to fair worse if caught it, but two mentioned going out during the relaxation of measures, to restaurants, friends’ gatherings, and holydays abroad. One of them weighed up the threat about the virus with feeling lonely, whilst seeking reassurance from friends who had the disease:‘I do worry about catching it but I have felt the need for company in the later period in a way that I wasn’t feeling as acutely earlier, and I’ve also felt that because I’ve been reading a lot and sharing information with friends […] who had it [covid] and got through it’ .Other individual factors included confusion about the rules. Informants expressed that their knowledge about the guidelines changed considerably after the first ease of lockdown measures, with most of them stating that they struggled to understand the rules:‘Now it’s really hard to know what’s okay to do. I’d like some nice clear information, and clear instruction that wasn’t contradictory. But it’s impossible to get’ .‘The messaging became very muddle, and almost a joke . Friends are not sure of what you can or cannot do. It was confusing and contradictory’ .Confusion about rules also led to negative expressions towards the new rules considered as ‘contradictory’, ‘ridiculous’ and ‘inconsistent’ in the balance of lifting and restricting, especially in regard to norms concerning social interaction . At the same time, distrust in the Government’s handling of the pandemic was very high, as with only one exception, who considered the pandemic a new phenomenon and therefore ‘normal’ for the Government to make mistakes, the rest of the participants strongly commented on the Government’s ‘lack of leadership’, ‘complete incompetence’, ‘lack of honesty’ and on their ‘lack of faith’ and ‘lack of trust’. Some of the criticism was directed at the need to impose lockdown earlier, the questioning of an early relaxation of measures, lack of access to tests for symptomatic people, no mandatory use of face masks, no police enforcement, and no border controls, amongst others. Individual decision making, often interchangeably described as following ‘common sense’, performing ‘own risk assessment’, or ‘doing what is sensible to do’ was expressed by many as a personal strategy to counter the Government’s perceived mismanagement of the pandemic:‘Now I am doing what I feel is right, it seems more like a judgement call than any sort of rule’ .‘I have breached the guidance in some ways since lockdown ended. I follow my own perceptions on what is safe or not’ .‘Doing the right thing and complying are not necessary the same thing. I’ve not complied with their [Government] instruction. Right the way through we implemented it [health protection] earlier, so I will continue doing what I feel is right rather than what they suggest’ .‘We [brothers’ family] did a risk assessment and we decided before the bubble was implemented that we were going to create our own bubble’ .In many cases, this led to a cautious attitude i.e. doing less than what the rules permitted  or, as one of them put it, ‘living in my own little lockdown’. Related to this was a view of reconsidering adherence in the future (intentions), if ‘lockdown’ measures were reinstated. Young and adult groups were more likely to re-consider adherence, some explicitly mentioned rules they would not follow, e.g. if bubbles were suspended, the rule of six, and not meeting people outdoors; others, anticipated an evaluative approach to the measures, similarly to the decision-making process described above. In comparison, older people were more prone to state they would follow the rules in the future.Interpersonal level factors are those associated with individuals’ perceptions of and interactions with family, friends, and neighbours , as well as support received and provided to facilitate adherence to rules. Young people and adults often expressed prosocial values in terms of feeling socially responsible for helping those most vulnerable given that they perceived themselves as less severely affected if catching Covid-19. Many joined Mutual Aid Groups, others spontaneously offered help to neighbours, often as a response to a perceived lack of support from the Government:‘The main thing to come out from this on a local level was that (and I did it myself) I contacted neighbours of mine who are less able to go out and more high-risk categories and asked if they needed any help. And I think that’s what a lot of people did, but that was from a local level … that should have been from a Government level’ .Many in the younger groups who were volunteering admitted to breaking the rules in terms of going out for unpermitted reasons while having COVID-19 symptoms, and at the same time, feeling responsible for the community and wanting to help. In these cases, the latter appears as more important than the perceived risk of spreading the disease to the most vulnerable. One volunteer, for example, commented regarding his approach to rules during lockdown:‘The oldest is 28 the youngest was 25 at the time, but, you know, we kind of see ourselves less at risk because we’re not interacting closely with people, we don’t have family around us, we’re not interacting with people more at risk on a regular basis, I guess we then felt that we could kind of follow the rules more loosely’ .Older people displayed more resources in terms of the type of activities they became involved in . Most valued the work of neighbours supporting the community. On the other hand, adults and older people were more likely to mention the use of masks as protective behaviour than young respondents, and older people considered the risk of running errands if they were living with someone shielding:‘We supported people with food. I thought too much of a risk to offer help and drive’ .Neighbours were generally praised on the basis of the support offered to the community, rather than their behaviour towards the rules. There were, however, a few interviewees visibly upset about neighbours constantly flouting the rules, leaving them pondering about their own compliance and self‐sacrifice for the collective effort:‘It was generally around that age group–maybe more like 20 something, mid-30s from professional backgrounds, but they just.. no compliance whatsoever. That was the only thing that did create animosity, because I am doing all the things that I am supposed to do, but some people out there that don’t give a dam basically, they are countering all the measures. Then you think of course there will be a level of non compliance, but I was quite surprised that it was that group and to that extent’ .Family and friends were mentioned as the main source of emotional support to help staying at home. Remote communication, via video-chat and mobile calls, was used by most participants in all groups. Yet some participants felt the need to meet, in person, members of their family who did not leave with them during the lockdown:‘So, I got in the car, I drove 10 minutes. I met him [son] in a park and we were sitting far away from each other but, you know, at least we were able to talk, rather than on Zoom’ .Some also relied upon family and friends for the delivery of food when shielding or having symptoms. Only a few informants received support from neighbours at least once for the delivery of food or prescriptions. Friends were often perceived as being adherent to SD rules, but during relaxation, many referred to creating ‘friend’s rules’ to meet up safely, regardless of the Government guidance.‘So we always made sure we met somewhere where everyone could avoid public transport and people, so in that sense, I don’t know if we were compliant at that point, but I felt like we were looking after each other and taking good measures’ .Many interviewees also remarked on ‘close friends’ being compliant as opposed to ‘acquaintances’ or ‘distant friends’, whom they knew were not following the rules and meeting up with others during lockdown.‘[…] very intelligent people [other friends] and the fact that they wouldn’t follow the rules on the one hand makes me angry, but then also like makes me go, well, there’s probably a lot of people like them that weren’t following the rules properly, so yeah, it certainly makes it, you know? how you follow the rules in future if there was another lockdown’ .Community level captures interactions with local area environments and services as well as perceptions about the local area. There were a range of issues raised in relation to the environment that had a direct relationship with respondents’ ability to comply with SD rules . The impossibility to access online delivery for foods was a constant problem stated by informants, leaving many of them to find ways of adapting and responding to their new situation, from visiting shops at different hours to changing the way they shopped. Yet despite their strategies, many referred to the lack of enforcement of SD rules by shop owners  for which people turned to for basic items, as well as by supermarkets, where control for protective measures  was considered rather weak.‘Where I live, there was no social distancing in the small shops […] Some people carried life as normal’ .‘Supermarket, there wasn’t too much enforcement beyond a few signs’ .Local parks were mentioned as problematic because of being too busy, with groups of people not being dispersed or controlled by the police, and for lack of maintenance; ‘too much litter’. This led people to find alternative green spaces, sometimes having to travel longer distances, or to avoid visiting parks completely:‘I didn’t go to the park anymore. Height of lockdown and it was a nice day, it was packed–people playing football and people in the ground. So busy. So, I went to another place/park and was busy as well. Nowhere to distance from people… didn’t see police around at all’ .‘I do expect a restaurant to keep my details’ .In addition, restaurants, after they were allowed to open on 4th July, were perceived for some as unsafe, leaving a few regretting their visit. Some indicated this was due to the lack of use of facemasks, others due to the lack of distancing between tables, and the no recording of customers’ contact details, as it was then required. As one commented: Regarding support from statutory services, this was very limited for those who needed it, leaving them unable to adhere with the norms as per guidelines. For example, a single mother with underlying health conditions complained about the late distribution and ‘in-store only’ use of food vouchers . Likewise, delay in responses was mentioned by those living with a shielding person, where the delivery of food took around a month to get sorted, leaving them feeling at risk when going shopping. A woman with mental health problems and living alone was discharged from hospital at the beginning of mitigation measures and stated it took six weeks for the hospital to get in touch and offer some support. She recalled being scared and non-compliant during that period:‘I had it tough because I have mental health issues so it [pandemic] made it worst […] I was discharged from hospital earlier than I should have because of the situation, and I didn’t have the support. I was drop literally into lockdown basically [..] Yes, at the begging I was like no one is gonna force me, no one is gonna police it. I thought, how can you make me stay at home? I’ve got no disease; I know I am disease free. It did take three weeks to sink in’ .Local area perceptions across all age groups indicated a concern about people not complying with SD rules, in particular after the relaxation period. Middle age and older groups considered this an issue with young people gathering in parks or not physically distancing when in shops or in the street. Many informants felt a lack of policing and enforcement of rules as problematic, while others were concerned about a perceived sense of ‘normality’ in the behaviours of local residents:‘People don’t wear masks, lots of people are not social distancing. People think is over’ .‘There is a sense of normality; even in the media referring to ‘during the pandemic’ as if it’s over! That’s interesting language, I think, because I don’t think is over at all.’ .This study identified individual, interpersonal and community level factors associated with intentional and unintentional non-adherence to SD rules during the first ‘lockdown’ and relaxation in a cross-sectional North London sample. To our knowledge, this is the first mixed-methods study on SD measures combining a survey with in-depth interviews. The explanatory sequential design allowed for an integration of qualitative data to offer a deeper understanding of quantitative findings: first, by contributing to our identification of unintentional non-adherence behaviours, which data collected in the survey made it difficult to objectively measure; second, by identifying new emerging themes related to intentional non-adherence behaviours.The additional detail gained from the qualitative data demonstrates aspects that are unique to a population group that could be broadly defined as being able to stay at home (able to work from home or retired), with lower caring responsibilities outside the house, largely not vulnerable to COVID-19, and who were exceptionally relying on statutory services. Additionally, it is important to consider that the relaxation period introduced significant changes to SD rules and that interviews took place between two and three and a half months after completion of the survey.Participants’ accounts revealed different challenging situations experienced both during full ‘lockdown’ and the relaxation of rules, which we have organised, following the Social Ecological model, at the intersections of individual, interpersonal and community levels. The most frequent act of intentional non-adherence, as reported in the survey (on average 1.92 times) and interviews, was going out for non-permitted reasons , often weighed against psychological factors (self-efficacy) that affected their confidence to staying at home i.e. feeling confined. The second most reported act of intentional non-adherence in all groups was at the interpersonal level; meeting family or friends they did not live with (at least once during lockdown and more than once during relaxation), as initially identified in our survey findings (average 0.67). Survey data reported that an additional level of support from friends increased the odds of intentionally not adhering to SD rules by 16%, which is further explained in the qualitative data where participants felt a strong emotional support from friends and family, and justified breaking rules due to ‘missing social interaction’ with loved ones, more likely reported after the relaxation period. Indeed, some participants stated that groups of friends agreed to meet up under certain rules (decision-making processes) which meant a deliberate contravention of guidelines. The perceived adverse emotional impact of SD rules and non-adherent behaviours has been reported in previous reviews  and studOur multiple analysis identified that an additional level of agreement on a 7-point Likert scale indicating trust in the Government decreases intentional SD infringements by 7.4%. The qualitative data enabled us to identify two possible explanations for this. First, attitude (emerging theme–not queried in the survey) revealed a negative perception towards the management of SD rules, in particular, after relaxation, which was informed by a lack of trust in Government, confusion about the content of the rules (knowledge), and a perception of conflicting messages, i.e. contradiction between what was permissible to do and not. Second, this negative attitude led, in turn, to a decision-making process (emerging theme) whereby individuals reported making their own evaluation about what was ‘reasonable’ or ‘safe’ to do in a particular context. The interaction of these variables allowed us to identify this as a key explanatory factor, where lack of trust in the Government and confusion about rules informed a negative attitude and induced an individual decision-making process where, in many instances, intentional non-adherence took place. These behaviours remind us of the importance of governments in maintaining confidence and public trust in their management of the pandemic, yet evidence indicates that UK politicians have foundered in this key area with people’s trust declining from 66% by mid-April 2020 to 39% in early June and to 30% by mid-September .There was a considerable level of support provided by interviewees to their communities, through engagement with Mutual Aids groups or running errands for neighbours, especially during the lockdown period. Interestingly, for the young group, this reflected an increased sense of community and prosocial values  although, at the same time, we found that this was not always associated with ‘protecting the most vulnerable’. This unintended non-observance of the rules where some volunteers reported going out for non-essential reasons and being symptomatic at different points, is similar to other UK surveys where low adherence was associated with people engaged in community work while having COVID-19 symptoms  or not .At the community level, the qualitative data identified another unintentional non-adherence behaviour, lack of control over others distancing in the community. Most of the informants reflected on their inability to keep 2 mts. distancing from people when shopping in local convenience stores and supermarkets. Parks were also identified as overcrowded areas, including lack of maintenance and policing to disperse groups. Environmental constrains also included restaurants and pubs, which were questioned for their lack of observance of the rules  leaving many feeling unsafe and unintentionally breaking the 2 mts. rules. In addition, there was clearly a reported negative perception of people’s lack of compliance in the ‘local area’, also found in a study from Islington and Camden . Our quaBuilding trust in public health measures might be challenging for the implementation of future SD measures or other protective measures, such as vaccinations, whose effectiveness depends on people’s behaviours. Reports have shown –45 that Parallel to partnership working, public health messaging should emphasise prosocial behaviours and responsibility for the community, especially protecting the vulnerable, tailoring messages to young adults who may underestimate the risk of spreading the disease. [Factors addressed: Supporting others and feeling low risk].It is also recommended that Environmental Health officers should work with local small businesses (corner shops), pubs and restaurants to advise on SD practices and practical protective behaviours, ensuring they are COVID-secure. Whilst it is important to do so by engaging with businesses’ concerns, it is also relevant that environmental health officers have enforcement powers to close business when failing to comply. [Factors addressed: Environmental constrains and lack of compliance in local area].Finally, further research is needed to develop a validated scale of non-adherence behaviours to SD measures, which should be grounded in a rounded understanding of individuals’ experiences.Our findings have identified ways in which non-adherence to SD rules can be intentional and unintentional and can be underpinned by factors occurring at different levels; individual, interpersonal, and community. In particular, our findings highlighted the importance of factors beyond people’s control and others that involved conscious decision-making, both resulting in a reduced likelihood to adopt recommended behaviours. Whilst all these factors are modifiable, our findings indicate that non-adherence can be improved by partnerships with local communities to build trust in SD measures; tailored messaging to young adults emphasising the need of protecting others whilst clarifying the risk of spreading the virus; and by ensuring COVID-secured environments through the work of environmental health officers.The mixed-methods approach allowed a nuanced understanding by integrating a predictive quantitative model with inferences from participants’ past experiences of behavioural non-adherence. However, there are known limitations to this type of research design. In particular, the challenge of attaining true integration over two large data sets. To overcome this barrier, our qualitative data was derived from the findings of the quantitative survey, so it was possible to integrate the two data sets and findings together by organising it into the different levels of the Social Ecological Model that guided our theoretical approach for both sets of data collection.Our study was restricted to those living in North London boroughs and behavioural adherence of people living in other parts of London and England might have been different. Further, although our qualitative sample offered a more balanced representation of population groups, in the survey, men and BAME groups were underrepresented, thus caution is needed in generalising quantitative findings to the North London population of interest.Self-report surveys and interviews are subjected to biases including recall bias (forgetting about breaking the rules) and social desirability bias (not admitting to breaking the rules). Potential interviewer bias was mitigated using a reflexive interviewing approach, whereby honesty in the responses provided was encouraged through a non-judgemental attitude, by ensuring participants understood the questions being asked and the interviewer double checking responses at the end, when necessary.S1 Appendix. Survey questionnaire(PDF)Click here for additional data file.S2 Appendix(PDF)Click here for additional data file.S3 Appendix(DOCX)Click here for additional data file.


Rather than serving to make the strange look more familiar, aesthetics here is about rendering the differences between humans and robots more relational. My notion of a relational-performative design approach—designing with bodying-thinging—proposes that we engage with human-robot encounters from the earliest stages of the robot design. This is where we begin to manifest boundaries that shape meaning-making and the potential for emergence, transformation, and connections arising from intra-bodily resonances (bodying-thinging). I argue that this relational-performative approach opens up new possibilities for how we design robots and how they socially participate in the encounter.This article lays out the framework for relational-performative aesthetics in human-robot interaction, comprising a theoretical lens and design approach for critical practice-based inquiries into embodied meaning-making in human-robot interaction. I explore the centrality of aesthetics as a practice of embodied meaning-making by drawing on my arts-led, performance-based approach to human-robot encounters, as well as other artistic practices. Understanding social agency and meaning as being enacted through the situated dynamics of the interaction, I bring into focus a process of  Social robots are designed to operate, mediate, or directly engage in social scenarios, provoking the question of how a machine becomes a social participant in these encounters. “Good” interaction, it is often assumed, should feel “natural,” i.e., reminiscent of social interaction between humans . But whaThis article introduces an alternative, arts-led approach to imagining our relationships with robots that embraces their difference and aims to take on a mediating role between human interactors and these potentially new social entities by locating itself in the middle of the encounter. My Machine Movement Lab (MML) project opens up an intimate link to performance-based inquiries into the relational enactment of human-robot encounters to investigate the generative potential of movement and its dynamic qualities to enact meaning with abstract robotic artifacts. Starting in 2015, the practice-based research project set out to explore the possibility of meaningful encounters with robots in ways that playfully employ machines’ unique otherness. To situateaisthēsis (perception), often described as an experience of sensorial or sensate binding, “a connectivity based on the senses” (Bodying‐Thinging).My notion of aesthetics is not confined to the purview of philosophy and art theory, where “aesthetics experience” is evoked or sustained by an “aesthetics object” and delineated as the appreciation of beauty in all its forms . Cultura senses” . My unde senses” , tightly senses” . Bringin senses” . Meaning senses” : 244, fr senses” : 178. Threlational-performative aesthetics in human-robot interaction, drawing on performative new materialist accounts . Following this, I introduce my MML project and its core method of Performative Body Mapping (PBM) that harnesses dancers’ tactile-kinaesthetic expertize to explore the social potential of human-robot relationships as difference in relation (Difference in Relation: Machine Movement Lab) and how it unhinges and makes elastic subject-object boundaries through a process of bodying-thinging (Bodying-Thinging). In (Designing with Bodying-Thinging), I argue that our meaning-making encounters do not only begin once a robot design is complete and able to partake but is put in motion as soon as we begin to imagine, experiment with, prototype, test, and make meaning of the artifact’s design. Finally, I briefly discuss my current research in expanded performance-making, (Dancing with the Nonhuman), revolving around the negotiation of different perceptual worlds facilitated through Relational Body Mapping (RBM), and complete with a (Discussion and Summary).In this article, I will attempt to lay out the framework for ts e.g.,  and embots e.g., , and grots e.g., . AesthetOne might argue that modeling human-robot relationships after human-human relationships has shown that this mimicking approach has succeeded in rendering robots more acceptable and easier to interact with , yet we Understanding meaning-making as a fundamentally esthetic and embodied process, situated and unfolding in the interaction scenario itself, moves the design focus into the middle of possible interactional scenarios and puts the spotlight on difference in relation. This relational, performative view contrasts human-centric design approaches founded on the belief that humanlike features and familiar behaviors can be orchestrated to give social agency to a robot . Social Coming back to the question of “natural interaction,” one major assumption underlying humanlike robot designs is that successful communication “is founded on what communicators already have in common” . It frammoved by movement  and moved to move ” (2014: 1). A number of researchers have thus explored the expressive potential of motion design beyond imitating human movement and, instead, focusing on how it can affect our interpretation of abstract, non-humanlike robotic artifacts. Levillain and Zibetti have investigated how non-humanlike “behavioral objects” open up possibilities for intuitive connection based on simple, evocative movement patterns (2017). Using the CoBot platform, Knight and Simmons have studied how expressive motion allows for a robot’s movements to be interpreted as simple mental states, e.g., happy vs. sad (2014). Jochum et al. discuss theatrical performance practices and entertainment robots, showing that strategies adopted from traditional puppetry can inform creative solutions for robot motion design (2017)Much of our embodied, social meaning-making process involves movement and, in particular, movement qualities, allowing us to rhythmically coordinate with others through interaction  and bodiRobot design practices that place movement and its potential for social meaning-making at the center of the design process, from the very beginning, are much rarer. Drawing on techniques from abstract character animation, Hoffman and Ju argue that a “robot’s motion can clue users into what actions and interactions are possible,” thus playing a significant, yet still “widely under-recognized” (2014: 95) role in human-robot interaction. Dominated by pragmatic and visual approaches, social robot designs, if at all, commonly only integrate movement qualities later in the process, once mechanical and visual development are completed . In a moin motion because interactivity implies sociability” . To avoid pre-scripted behaviors, Kroos et al. developed an attention model, which plays a central role in a tightly coupled perception-action control system (2014). Following the sounds in the robot’s surrounds and tracking visitors’ faces, the installation’s resulting attentive behaviors are sometimes reminiscent of Edward Ihnatowicz’s pioneering cybernetic sculpture the Senster  project . While this is the case with any designed product, the argument gains more significance within the context of artificial social agents, fabricated to tightly integrate into our societal fabric. Beliefs and intentions do not only manifest in marketable, communication-friendly features but also material boundaries in terms of what they include and exclude and, more importantly, rendering differences relational. The following provides an account of performative meaning-making as it unfolds in our practice, with the esthetic goal to create a rich playground for investigating difference in relation at work by embracing and playfully exploiting the differences between human and machine.In a performative view, “[a]gency is not an attribute but the ongoing reconfigurings of the world” : 818 thaStarting in 2015, MML brings together creative, embodied practices with robotics and machine learning, grounded in an enactive, performative framework. The project’s main objective is to open up alternative pathways to social robot design by investigating the relational, generative potential of movement qualities for meaningful encounters with abstract, social artifacts. The question that guided our methodological development was how can a robot with its unique “machinic” differences become relational and participate in social encounters without tightly orchestrated predefined tasks that would prescribe the social scenario? Movement was identified very early on as being key to transforming the social potential of abstract artifacts see . InsteadPerformative Body Mapping (PBM), which harnesses the expertise of dancers to, essentially, “train” a robot to develop sensibilities for human movement qualities (in the form of learned biases and constraints) without simply reperforming human movements. The goal is not to train the robot as if it was a human dancer; rather, we aim for unscripted, embodied meaning-making encounters with an improvising robotic artifact that has learned a few tricks from a human dancer. But “learning tricks” from a human dancer is a challenge for a simple object without legs, arms, a spine, or head. In fact, we did not know how the object would look like at the start of the process, as we wanted to begin with the movement potential itself, rather than a given shape that has to learn to move.The proposition is that the effective, sociocultural dimensions embedded in our movement qualities can serve to bootstrap the robots’s learning to situate it in “the social and cultural scaffolds that human embodied beings are situated within” : 4. The with it, and 2) bypass the correspondence problem , while the second, current stage  involves the robot’s unique sensorium to explore how movement qualities transform the relational space between different agents, including artifacts, human performers, and the surrounds (see Dancing with the Nonhuman).The first PBM research stage (2015–2018) began with a series of experiments that involved dancers becoming entangled with a wide range of materials to kinaesthetically feel and extend into other nonhuman forms and their material affordances. We then selected two simple geometric shapes, previously inhabited by performers to study the transformative potential of movement qualities, to take on the role of “costumes” that stand in for the real-size shape of a becoming-robot .7 Comb problem .9 ThisPBM aims to tap into our bodies’ tactile-kinaesthetic capabilities to develop and recognize “the synergies of meaningful movement” see  to exploCube Performer #1 (Cube Performer #2) as part of our iterative design processDesigning with Bodying-Thinging). The Cube Performer has exactly the same dimensions as the cube costume . It is worth pointing out that the purpose of these prototypes is primarily that of a materialized, situated research proposition that allows us to 1) inquire into the potential of relational-performative aesthetics for human-robot encounters and the possible human-machine couplings they entail and 2) develop human-nonhuman performance scenarios to engage publics in important questions about human-robot relationships (see Dancing with the Nonhuman).So far, we realized one of the costume bodies as two robotic prototypes, ormer #1  and CubeDesigning with a focus on human-machine couplings, I recognize that the polarization of humanlike vs. machinelike is not helpful and in the following attempt to outline in what ways I understand and use these terms both in our MML process and in this article. In my conversations with choreographers and dancers, I often refer to terms such as humanlike or machinelike to delineate between human body configurations or  human movement patterns and mechanical configurations or the precise steadiness of robot motion. But, over the course of our PBM movement studies, “machinelike” would also come to denote our “destination,” that is, no longer standing in for typical machinic motion but for movement characteristics that emerged in conjunction with the robot’s spatial-material affordances, activated by a performer-in-costume. With respect to robot design, I use “humanlike” to refer to a designer’s deliberate intent to mimic the human as well as to identify the moments in our process in which we slip into ascribing humanlike qualities to movements performed by the performer-cube entanglement. As our objective is to give space to emergent qualities and unexpected meanings unfolding in the encounter see also , we seekbodying-thinging (Bodying‐Thinging) directly speaks to the potential effects of this juxtaposition. Hence, rather than aiming to control or channel participants’ interpretations, my relational-performative approach seeks to emphasize the significance of allowing the space for sociality and meaning to be enacted in the encounter, which naturally includes unexpected interpretations and responses , according to Manning and Massumi, it is movement that “bodies-forth” (2014: 39). Rather than a body (or a thing), it is movement in its dynamic differing that is “bodying.” And, neither is “thinging” done by what an object represents. In his seminal text on “the Thing,” Heidegger states, “[i]f we let the thing be present in its thinging from out of the worlding world, then we are thinking of the thing as thing” (1971: 178), untied from an object’s utility. As (human) interactors bodily empathize with the artifact becoming more than what the object represents, they are bodying‐thinging in resonance with the bodying‐thinging of the robotic artifact. Despret, writing about how we seek to understand animal behavior, describes this transformative bodily reading and communicating as “‘undo[ing] and redo[ing]’ each other”  interactors to corporeally resonate and respond to a dynamically moving artifact, whose embodiment and behavior are very different from their own. Intelligibility here is not confined to matters of intellection but “rather more generally may entail differential responsiveness to what matters” . Writing about machine performance, Dimitrova identifies a “constitutive connectivity [that] allows bodies to become dissipative structures,” an empathic “being toward” that allows us to “peer into regions that were previously unintelligible” (2017: 175). Yet, this potential for connectivity is not restricted to organic bodies . In the following, I will take a closer look at PBM and how the dancer bodily and kinaesthetically tunes into the otherness of a robot’s embodiment through the PBM costume.dies see  but is aization” : 824 thabodying-thinging not only frames the process of how subject-object boundaries are continually enacted and transformed in an ongoing “undoing and redoing” each other, but in PBM also materially manifests in the performative mappings. PBM harnesses dancers’ ability “to become virtuosos of coping,” which means to become, in Noland’s words, “experts at adapting their own sensorimotor instrument to the situation at hand” (2009: 1). According to Noland, technology in choreographic contexts serves to establish environments and situated demands that challenge dancers “to discover the ways human bodies produce themselves (how they refine their capacities and thus assume new shapes)” in relation to these demands (2009: 1).bodying-thinging that goes on in the PBM performer-cube entanglement. A dancer, who has inhabited the cube costumebodying‐thinging that is at the heart of my relational-performative aesthetics.The esthetic, performative differing of Bodying‐Thinging in PBM is not a simple transaction like the human dancer “bodying” the machine or the machine “thinging” the human dancer. Bodying or “bodying-forth” denotes to the relational meanings produced by the machine’s differing through movement dynamics—a being toward that we usually connect with the lifelike or animated. Importantly, movement here is not only about couplings between bodies and the environment but also brings with it cultural and historical couplings . Entanglements with the nonhuman not only involve (preformed) objects and machines but matter itself and the different sociomaterial relations it is embedded in. A relational-performative design approach is thus more akin to humbly participating in the “ongoing open process of mattering through which ‘mattering’ itself acquires meaning and form in the realization of different agential possibilities” : 817. Mebodying-thinging and body-thing with it. This is how we can design with its relational potential and the dynamics it arises from, along the process, rather than encountering the robot for the first time at the end of the design process. In such a performative process, the design brief for a robot is never complete, because the intra-active process of both design and encounter  constitutes and continuously reconfigures capacities for relation-making. In order to give space to the enactment of relations and the making of meaning in the encounter, I propose that the two distinct processes of design and encounter need to be understood as one continuous process—designing with the encounter.Our human-robot encounter begins when we imagine the robot, experiment with its design, prototype it, and share, evaluate, and make meaning of its designing with the encounter (rather than for the encounter) is how we attend to 1) the agential networks that nonhuman materialities are embedded in, as well as 2) the agencies and meanings that our process inevitably makes manifest in the design, whether deliberate or unwittingly, and 3) how these (1 and 2) intra-act with the meaning-making, later, in the encounter with participants. Every design process necessarily involves decisions that include certain possibilities and exclude others and that eventually manifest in specific material forms and behaviors . Let me briefly introduce some stages of our process and how it was propelled by the transformational potential of relational movement qualities and material affordances.The difference of unfixing relations by materially investigating them, rather than focusing on tasks and their potentially already fixed relations. Doing so, our process started with a series of human-nonhuman encounters, with dancers bodily probing into the performative potential of a wide range of material relations. This early stage, which favored movement and relationality over visual characteristics, focused our esthetic approach on investigating the potential of “disjunction of form and movement”  opens up another esthetic approach to exploring how a machine actively participates in the encounter, showing how its relational potential arises both from its unique machine embodiment and the dynamics of the particular situation it is embedded in. A pioneering example of a machine performer, Petit Mal, appears neither humanlike nor animal-like and behaves and relates to its world in ways that are unique to its machine embodiment. Resembling a strange, responsive dicycle, the work’s unique behavior results from an eccentric mechanism based around a double pendulum, which brings an unpredictable charming quality to its movements, swaying through the gallery space to “engage visitors in large-scale bodily interaction—a dance,” (2016: 57). In his writings, Penny has long been critical of the dualist computationalist separation of software/hardware and information/matter, in favor of a performative view (2017 and 2011). Petit Mal embodies this view with hard- and software developed contingent on one another. What is particularly interesting with regards to the machine’s unique embodiment and ability to engender affect and relationality is the complexity of its movements resulting from, by comparison, a simple mechanism. Based on the artist’s embodied, processual and antirepresentational approach and observations of audiences’ bodily responsesPetit Mal is bodying-thinging. I am not sure, however, that the artist would agree with me. In tandem with descriptions of Petit Mal’s relationality being enacted as part of interactional dynamics, he frequently positions the work as “an autonomous machine” .Staging is an important practice for HRI, allowing a robot to be situated in various sociomaterial and cultural settings and frequently used to promote a robot’s autonomous agency see . While oDancing with the Nonhuman), our staging considerations mostly involved how the robot visually integrates in existing  contexts in ways that heighten its relational potential brought forth by its movement qualities. Importantly, this also meant that we present the Cube Performer as a prototype or “research work in progress” rather than a complete artwork, motivated to show the prototype at different stages of the PBM process to gain insights into whether and how audiences/participants “intra-bodily resonate” and engage with the robot in an unscripted encounter. So far, we have staged very simple first-encounter scenarios with the Cube Performer as part of two public exhibitions,Cube Performer #1 into the gallery context by staging the prototype as a gallery plinth among a group of other (immobile) plinths (Discussion).While it can be tempting to exploit our age-old fascination with self-moving machines by staging them as visual spectacles, I have so far approached the staging of the Cube Performer through the aesthetics of the anti-spectacle. This, in my practice, involves nestling the robotic performer(s) into an environment in ways that foreground the unfolding dynamic enactments and how they transform the situation. plinths . In the  plinths . These “The Tiller Girls (2010) is an example of a meticulously choreographed stage work that gives ample space to emergent relations and even welcomes unplanned collisions and tumbles. The work brings into conjunction the cultural legacy of the 1930s (human) dance ensemble, named “The Tiller Girls,” with a troupe of 32 small machine performers. The robots, deployed as machine performers in The Tiller Girls, were originally developed by scientists Fumiya Iida, Raja David, and Max Lungarella at the Artificial Intelligence Lab, Zurich, to “study locomotion and gaits derived from simplified morphologies” . Interestingly, both the artist and the machine performer have to do work to align the performer’s multiple bodies with its behavior: the machine performer has to align its behaviors with its body and the artist then has to align its behavior with its “given social embodiment” , albeit in Petit Mal’s case it is both the artist’s coded behavior and the instable mechanism, which generates the movement qualities, that bestow it with agency . We are interested in the Cube Performer learning a generalisable model of this situated and perceptually guided  expands the PBM costume with an identical set of sensors as those used by the robotided see  motion dided see  to produided see .The first stage of our performance-making process focused on developing a series of semi-improvisational choreographic scoresrelational-performative aesthetics in human-robot interaction, comprising a theoretical lens and design approach for critical practice-based inquiries into embodied meaning-making in human-robot interaction. The following takes a closer look at how movement qualities can contribute to human-robot interaction design and then identifies four areas of design challenges before ending with a summary.This article has laid out a framework for generate new meanings with their interactors, opening up aesthetically rich, social experiences without relying on predefined personalities, narratives, or tasks. The relational-performative effects of such skills are likely to be particularly useful in dynamic social environments where humanoid robots are too costly or potentially too risky from an ethical viewpoint,In a relational-performative view, meaning-making is a fundamentally esthetic and embodied process, situated and unfolding in the interactional dynamics. Movement with its generative, dynamic qualities here offers more than cueing users “into what actions and interactions are possible” : 95. RobThe Dot and the Line (1965). Animation often requires movement to be defined through static poses (keyframes) that are then digitally interpolated; we can find a similar approach in MIT’s dialogue-free Interactive Robot Theater, which animated robot “actors” by transitioning between a set list of poses , “it was very important that the audience was looking in the right place at the right time” . According to their own accounts, this felt more like attempting to control the costume, clutching it with their hands, arms, or legs and using their visual sense to explore movement patterns.generates possibilities by unfolding relational affordances that give rise to intracorporeal meaning-making, which is core to social understanding  situate abstract robots and 2) generating meanings as part of the interaction process. My notion of Even if we have the opportunity to work with professional movement experts and wearable costumes or prosthesis-like attachments see  or any oStudying the social, relational and performative effects of agential enactment as they unfold in the interaction dynamics is very challenging. As we aim to give ample space to meanings and relations emerging and being negotiated in the encounter, there are no specific tasks or predefined social capacities against which we can measure how well the robot or a human-robot-coupling performs. Observed relationships often do not discriminate between relations that emerge from within the encounter and ones that arise (only) in the eye of the observer. While we found that participants asked about their experience often were able to identify salient moments that triggered something, they may find it challenging to further articulate what happened in these moments of dis/connectedness, particularly in the first encounter. Also, as we look at meaning-making unique to each encounter, results are not as decisive and comparable as in more typical study setups. These challenges, however, are not only reserved for studying performative relations with machinelike artifacts but tend to arise when studying the complex dynamics of social interactions as situated couplings see .could be, if we invest in more diverse and differentiated approaches into designing with a machine’s social potential.Tightly interlinked with the above is the challenge that we can no longer control or predict what happens in the encounter nor whether or how meaningful social relations emerge. From a traditional engineering viewpoint, this may sound like something that only an artistic project can afford or even desires. Indeed, MML deliberately pursues design strategies that render our intra-actions with machines more emergent, open, and potentially ambiguous and definitely irreproducible see also . I recogdesigned with to give ample space to the interactional situation and the transformative potential of its social dynamics. Integral to this transformational process is the potential for bodying-thinging, where relations are not the product of meaning-making experiences but instead constitute meanings and experiences and, with them, subjects and objects. Bodying-thinging foregrounds both human and nonhuman capacities to extend toward and across boundaries and, doing so, destabilizes and potentially collapses binary opposites . Discussing creative motion-centric approaches that put aesthetics to work to reimagine human-machine boundaries, I explored different perspectives on agency and how it constitutes the robot/machine as performer. My collaborative Machine Movement Lab project opens up an intimate link to performance-based inquiries into the relational enactment of human-robot encounters, based on an aesthetics arising from difference in relation. The Performative Body Mapping (PBM) methodology harnesses dancers’ tactile-kinaesthetic expertize and the sociocultural dimensions of (human) movement qualities to socially situate an abstract robotic artifact and bootstrap its machine learning. Relational Body Mapping (RBM) extends the PBM costume to serve as an instrument for sensorial mapping between different human and nonhuman perceptual worlds. MML’s overarching aim is to open up new pathways for robot design by focusing on the coupling of human-machine and “giving space” to the enactment of relations and the emergence of meanings in the encounter.My notion of could socially participate in our society.According to Suchman, reconceptualizing how we conceive of “the human, the technological, and the relations between them [has] implications for everyday practices of technology design” (2007b: 139). Reconceptualizing our relations with robots and how this implicates and transforms our design practices has been the main focus of this article. How such alternative practices can affect new kinds of relationships with robots will require significant investment into studying differentiated and diverse design approaches as well as involving potential users from the early stage of the design process. Creative practices expand technology design not only by bringing different cultural and esthetic questions to human-robot interaction research but also by engaging the publics in the important question of how machines


I read the letter of Wyper et al. with great interest, and I welcome their excellent contribution to the discussion on years of life lost (YLL) in COVID-19 epidemic.As emphasized by the title of my paper , my aim First, Wyper et al. state that “[f]rom the perspective of informing public health policy, the counterfactual to be applied in the estimation of YLL is that of an ideal, aspirational, standard based upon desirably low mortality risks” Whether this is indeed true is a matter of debate that I can’t comment on, but Wyper et al. are entirely correct that I failed to present this approach despite being an established way of calculation. I use this opportunity to make up for this omission.Aspirational calculations either use a fixed target age  to which the years lost are compared, or use a complete life table with “ideally low” mortalities  . Table 1R2 of 99.9%. The calculated YLL with the fixed target age method is almost perfectly quadratic in the target age: With the exception of the comorbidity-adjusted value, where input data are only available for Hungary, this method can be extended to other countries using the COVarAGE-DB database . Figure Second, they state that “the key utility of YLL estimates lays in comparisons, whether with respect to other health outcomes, across time, or between demographic sub-populations or geographic regions” and claim that correction for comorbidities would likely make such comparisons impossible or infeasible. Indeed, data on individual level comorbidities—that I had for Hungary—are very likely not available for other countries, especially with a uniform methodology in collection . However, comparison across time is entirely possible, i.e., we could compare different phases of the epidemic within Hungary by calculating the daily number of years of life lost, using uniformly the same adjustment. Not only possible, but it may be also relevant as a way to measure what population is affected by the pandemic Fig. . For insAs an illustration, I calculated the—spline-smoothed—daily number of years of life lost for Hungary with the standard life table method, with the comorbidity-adjusted method, and with the aspirational approach (using the GBD Reference Life Table). One can observe that different results are well aligned, but not perfectly.Finally, I can wholeheartedly join on their last remark, warning users of such statistics to avoid pitfalls that could lead to unfair and unjust decisions at population level.https://github.com/tamas-ferenci/YLL_COVID19_Hungary.My current letter is brief and contains almost no discussion of the presented results, but I hope that it can raise issues that could be fruitfully debated, discussed and extended in the future. Full analysis script  is available at


Understanding parental views regarding family physical activity is essential to the development of family-focused physical activity interventions. Using a qualitative methodology with thematic analysis and a socio-demographic questionnaire, this study aimed to examine Mexican American and Puerto Rican parental views on child and family physical activity. Sixty-one parents  from four sites  each participated in a single one-hour focus group session, which included an average of five parents. The findings of this study indicated that parents perceived themselves and their families to be physically active, while some parents believed their children were getting enough physical activity at school and afterschool programs. Walking, bicycling, and playing soccer were the most common physical activities that parents reported engaging in as a family. In addition, some parents shared their preference for exercising without their children. Time constraints along with unsafe neighborhood streets and parks were identified as the major barriers to being physically active as a family. Mothers reported that fathers’ involvement in physical activity and combining a healthy diet with exercise were useful strategies for physical activity promotion. This study provides valuable information regarding Hispanic parental views concerning family physical activity relevant to the design of culturally family-based physical activity interventions for this population. Obesity is a major health challenge facing children and adolescents in the United States. The obesity rate has tripled among American youth since 1980 . ObesityThe supporting evidence indicates that, among other factors, a steady decline in physical activity (PA) contributes to obesity development in youth and adults ,8. ParenStudies have also assessed parental knowledge and attitudes regarding their own and their children’s PA. Parents reported to be aware of PA’s health benefits for themselves and their family members and valued PA ,13,15. FLimited research has investigated Hispanic parental views of PA regarding their own and their family with children of various ages. Based on existing literature on this area, Hispanic parents perceived themselves to be sufficiently active during the day because of their physically demanding jobs and household-related work . A recenLittle is known about the perceptions of Hispanic parents regarding PA attitudes, preferences, behaviors, and socioenvironmental influences on PA from a family perspective. Considering Hispanic parental PA views within a family context is relevant because of their strong endorsement of familial closeness and engaging in activities as a family . Family For this study, a qualitative methodology  was emplSixty-one parents  each participated in a single one-hour focus group session, conducted between June 2015 and August 2018. Each focus group conducted during this period included an average of five parents. Participants were recruited from four sites . To participate in the study, parents had to be of Mexican or Puerto Rican descent and to have a child between 6–18 years of age. Mexican and Puerto Rican families were selected to participate in this study because they constitute the largest Hispanic subgroups residing in the United States .Recruitment efforts included posting study fliers and distributing them at churches, grocery stores, flea markets, community centers, laundromats, public schools, and recreation centers. Research assistants also contacted community organizations that serve Hispanic families to ask for referrals of families to the study. The Institutional Review Boards at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (#15503), the University of Houston (#0000456), California State University, Fresno (#731), and the University of Puerto Rico—Mayaguez Campus (#00002053) approved the research protocol.Upon attending a recruitment session or receiving information about the study informally, interested parents were asked to provide their contact information to research assistants or they received research staff contact information to obtain additional information. If participants met the eligibility criteria and agreed to participate in the study, they were scheduled for a focus group interview session. Before participation in the focus group interviews, parents read the consent forms in their preferred language and signed informed consent (available in English or Spanish). Trained bilingual facilitators led the focus group interviews in Spanish at convenient locations for parents and ensured privacy . After a brief welcome, introduction, and description of focus group interview procedures (including audiotaping), parents were invited to ask questions. At the beginning of each focus group, parents completed a demographic questionnaire that included questions regarding their date and place of birth, generation status, language preference (both spoken and written), educational attainment, religion, marital status, number of children, employment, annual household income, and the number of people the income supports. Additionally, a question regarding how parents rated their general health was included. Following the demographic questionnaire, bilingual project coordinators or research assistants led each session using an interview guide that included the focus group questions and follow-up probes. A total of 13 focus groups were conducted. On average, five parents participated in each focus group session, which lasted one hour in duration. Previous studies, as well as a review of the literature, informed the development of the guide. Small focus group sessions were selected as the methodology due to the interest in having an open and in-depth discussion with parents about their physical activity practices. Parents received a 10 USD gift card or cash for their participation in this study.All focus group interview sessions included basic structured questions about parental views regarding PA engagement, PA attitudes, perceived PA challenges, and socio-environmental factors that might influence their own, their children, and family’s PA. All interviews were conducted in Spanish, audio-recorded, and later transcribed verbatim. Two bilingual research assistants back-translated the transcripts for accuracy purposes. Researchers followed the coding process outlined by Braun and Clarke’s six-step thematic analysis approach , and theThe sample consisted of 61 Hispanic parents . As shown in The themes presented in this study represent commonalities found across the four sites. Six themes were identified, which include (1) engagement in PA as a family, (2) engagement in PA alone, (3) child engagement in PA at school, (4) exercise is for all, (5) exercise everywhere, and (6) barriers and facilitators to influence PA as a family.“Well, I’ll tell you guys that we do it together because we’ll walk to their school, back to the house, and from the house back to the school. Whenever I take them to the park to play, I’ll take them to the slides too. And I’m chasing after them, just running around.” Parents also state that they would walk with the entire family, or sometimes just with their spouses: “I like to go for walks and so does my husband. We go for walks and take the kids. My kids don’t like it very much, but I force them to come.”Parents reported that they and their family members regularly participated in physical activity. Walking was the most common family PA reported by parents. Parents stated that walking was easy to incorporate into their daily family routines, such as walking kids to school and picking them up or walking as a family in the late afternoons: “My kids do a lot in parks like playing soccer or riding their bicycle. And well, my husband also plays a lot of soccer.” Parents also described bicycling and playing soccer as activities that family members engaged in regularly.Bicycling and playing soccer were other physical activities that parents reported they engaged in often as a family: Although study participants across all four sites did not mention weightlifting, we included it in this paper as it reflected the father’s influence on family PA engagement, which was alluded to in multiple focus groups. As a mother states:“Well, I try to do weights, but I don’t like it. I have never liked to exercise with weights, but my husband will try to include me, and he’ll show me, but I don’t like to do it. He’s started to show our daughter how to lift weights and how to use the machine, but she doesn’t enjoy it either. We include the youngest child, but it is very difficult. We’ll tell him we are going to go workout with weights, and he will join us. I’ve seen a lot of men work with weights but not women.”“My son likes to play soccer. So, he’ll go to the park to play or he’ll go to our backyard with the dog and he’ll practice there.” Parents also stated that they prefer sometimes to exercise alone: “I prefer to do stuff alone because if I take my children to the park they don’t keep up. They want to play. And when I put an aerobics video they tend to talk or laugh at me.” Several parents stated that they preferred to exercise alone because family members were too distracting, their children did not want to join them, their job was physically demanding, and/or they exercised while the children were at school.Some parents shared that children sometimes exercised on their own, either because they are practicing for an organized sport, they are bored, or they just enjoy doing it: “And my girl, well she exercises at school, twice a week they make them run a mile. So, for them, I think that exercise is enough.”Parents believed that their children are getting enough exercise at their schools and afterschool programs: “I think we all need to do exercise. It does not matter your age, if you are fat, or if you are thin, but I think exercise is for all.” Parents did not share any preconceived notions about specifically who should exercise and instead emphasized that this should be a part of life for everyone: “I consider that physical activity should not be limited to a certain age, because being active is healthy.”Regarding specific views about who should be physically active and how, parents overwhelmingly stated that everyone should exercise, that it is equally important for men, women, and children to exercise, regardless of age and body size: “In my apartment in the living room. And later at the school also.” Convenience was a major factor for parents to exercise; if a place was close, parents reported that they would be likely to use that space to exercise. Overall, parents reported that they and the family exercised most frequently at home, in their yards, at school, and parks.Parents shared that they exercised where they can. If an area was safe and there was enough space, then they would use it: “[She] Doesn’t have time, she takes the children to their practices and does so with all the children.”Time was reported as the major deterrent to exercising, either regularly, or at all. One father shared about his wife’s lack of PA: “My husband has wanted to go to the gym, my older daughter also, but since my husband does not have a fixed time to complete his job, he does not have time. Sometimes he does some weights here at our home.”One mother shared about her husband and daughter’s PA: “I would like to walk, but since they robbed me at the park, well I got scared. And it was in a few parks, I tried in various parks and always something will happen. I no longer go to walk in parks. But well, the kids do exercise only at school.”Although most parents shared that they generally had safe places to exercise, some stated that there were areas that they avoided because they were not safe, in some cases, streets around their homes and local parks: “In physical activity, well, I try to get my husband to invite our son to go play soccer even though he doesn’t like it. Well, he likes playing with him and he does a bit more of exercise.”Additionally, parents reported family sickness, children’s busy schedules, lack of motivation, and inclement weather as deterrents to being physically active. Parents also shared strategies that they would use to increase the likelihood of promoting PA within the family. For instance, mothers stated that a strategy was to involve husbands to engage their children in PA as illustrated by the following statement: “I believe there should be changes in the food and also in the exercise. Because if you are going to eat well but do not exercise, I think that will not help you. I think it has to be both.”Parents also stated the importance of combining exercise and a healthy diet: This study investigates, using a social–ecological model, Mexican and Puerto Rican parental views regarding parental factors  and social–environmental factors  that might influence PA within the family. Unique to this study is its inclusion of an understudied sample of predominantly Spanish-speaking Mexican American and Puerto Rican mothers and a few fathers across four sites . Identifying PA perceptions is an important step in designing culturally appropriate PA interventions for underserved populations, including Mexican and Puerto Rican parents and their school-age children.The findings of this study reveal that parents agree that everyone needs to be engaged in PA, and that it is equally important for children and adults to be active regardless of their age and body size. Parents also perceive themselves and their families as being active and engaged in multiple forms of PA. In terms of the type of PA, parents report walking as the most common PA they engage in as a family. This finding replicates previous studies, suggesting that walking is the most popular family PA among Hispanic families ,27. ThisIn terms of perceived PA levels, study parents report that they and their children are physically active. Further, some parents perceive that their children are getting enough physical activity at school and after school programs, which is consistent with previous studies examining parental views of physical activity . ParentsIn this study, Hispanic parents also identify PA promoting strategies and barriers. Hispanic parents report that fathers’ involvement in PA and combining a healthy diet with exercise are valuable strategies for PA promotion among their families. Research examining the role of fathers has suggested that fathers are powerful influencers on their children’s PA, especially adolescent girls . Some rIn addition, parents identified time constraints along with unsafe neighborhood streets and parks as major challenges to being active as a family. These findings are consistent with previous research, suggesting that lack of time and unsafe environments are the reported barriers to PA among Hispanic families ,17,42. FAbriendo Caminos curriculum [The study outcomes should be interpreted considering several limitations. The sample consists of mostly Spanish-speaking Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans, limiting the generalizability of the results to another Hispanic subgroup of mothers. Additionally, although the goal of this study is to explore perceptions of parental PA views, most of the study participants were mothers with few fathers participating. However, our study reveals that, within the Hispanic family, the father can play a relevant role in modeling PA and in facilitating family interactions for PA. Thus, the inclusion of more fathers in future studies is warranted. Another limitation of this study is that, although eligibility criteria included parents having a child between the ages of 6–18, child age is not explicitly collected in this study. We recognize that this information is important to consider when examining parental perspectives regarding PA. This study did not explore other complex issues related to PA participation, such as cultural and gender differences in various PA engagement, and sibling and peer influences on PA. It would be helpful to ascertain families’ preferences for the type of PA according to child gender, the preferred location for PA, and the ideal daily time that parents are willing to devote to PA. We will explore this information in the future to incorporate new findings in curriculum programming for adaptations of the rriculum . Despite


The complex relationship between science and politics has been a perennial issue in public administration. In this debate it is important to distinguish between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ politics, and between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ science. The Covid-19 pandemic has valorised the importance of science in shaping governmental responses, and has tended to contrast politics negatively with science. However, technocratic approaches to policymaking downplay the importance of politics in policymaking. Two case studies, of countries where there have been markedly different pandemic outcomes are used to illustrate the relationship between science and politics during this public health crisis – New Zealand and Brazil. In New Zealand there has been a positive and effective, if technocratic, relationship between science and politics, while in Brazil the relationship between the two domains has been fraught. The tension between liberal democratic values, on the one hand, and governments’ need for scientific and technical expertise, on the other, has been a perennial theme in the scholarly literature of public administration Waldo, . It has Whereas elected politicians are a defining feature of liberal democracy, the professionals and bureaucrats who are increasingly appointed to serve elected governments have come to acquire so much power and authority in their own right, that they have usurped or could usurp the legitimate role of elected officials. The Covid-19 pandemic has shown that effective governmental responses must rely heavily on expert scientific advice – especially that provided by epidemiologists, microbiologists, and immunologists.In this article we do not attempt to pass any judgment on the validity or otherwise of scientific advice which addresses such central issues as community spread, infection, mortality, contact-tracing, and vaccination rates, or whether elimination, suppression, mitigation or other strategies are the most effective in containing the virus. Instead, we examine what can be seen as a ‘meta’ issue – the overarching relationship between science and politics in public policymaking, in regard to the pandemic, with comparative references to the cases of New Zealand and Brazil. New Zealand and Brazil have been chosen as two contrasting cases in the spectrum of pandemic management success and failure.Examination of these two cases provides insights into the importance of ‘good politics’ for the successful use of ‘good science’ in policy-making and the role of ‘good science’ in checking ‘bad politics’. More specifically, we ask: to what extent can New Zealand’s generally successful performance in handling the pandemic be attributed to a mutually supportive and productive relationship between politics and science, in contrast to the Brazilian case, where this relationship and its outcomes have been markedly different?After this introduction the first part of the article presents an overview of the theoretical debate around the politics - science divide, with a heuristic framework distinguishing among ‘good and ‘bad’ science and ‘good’ and ‘bad’ politics. The second part focuses on the politics of technocracy, with reference to the cases of New Zealand and Brazil in the management of Covid-19, and discusses the main implications of the preceding discussion for policy failure and success.In conceptualising his ‘four estates’ Price  contrastSimilarly, science and policymaking can be seen as two distinct ‘communities’, separated by different languages, values and reward systems Caplan, . AccordiSo in cases like the current pandemic, effective policymaking will rest not only on politicians’ capacity for action but also on scientists’ ability to persuade politicians, and also the public at large. The skills of scientific analysis must combine with the skills of political advocacy, and both the demand and supply sides of this relationship should be prepared to interact in the first place , the main effects of the pandemic are obvious to all – infection, illness, hospitalisation and – far too often - death. So governments have been compelled to act, or be seen to be doing so. Some have acted decisively and immediately, others much less so. In doing so they have been able to draw upon a strong body of consensual advice proffered by epidemiologists, microbiologists and immunologists, among others. In most countries, contrary scientific advice has been marginalised in public debate, while in others, scientific controversy has been further fueled by political controversy, aggravating levels of uncertainty and stalling both decisive political action and social compliance with preventive measures. For example, scientific advocates of ‘herd immunity’ in countries like Sweden and Britain had their brief time in the political sun, while in New Zealand one university epidemiologist who was publicly critical of the government’s elimination strategy quickly became a professional outcast.Where high levels of scientific consensus do not exist policymakers can play off against one another expert advisers who promote different and often conflicting theories. At the time when concern over climate change was beginning to gain public attention, mainly in the 1980s, the scientific consensus was then more emergent, more contested, and less embraced by politicians driven by different partisan and electoral agendas. This has been even more true of political advice generated by the social sciences, including that discipline which has aspired to be the most like the natural sciences – economics. Economic policymaking is inescapably political in nature, with consensus being based as much on ideological preference as it is on scientific analysis, with political conflicts among key individuals, schools of thought, and vested interests Carter, . IronicaLindblom demonstrated in his seminal article, ‘The Science of Muddling Through’, that political rationality is less about means-ends choice, than it is about the quest for collective agreement on political and policy action  as the lodestar of scientific activity.Nevertheless, these key elements of science are idealistic, in the sense of a Weberian ‘ideal type’, for as Kuhn’s  influentWhile it is more difficult to insulate social science research from political influences and easier to insulate natural science from immediate political considerations, nevertheless the latter can also be used to pursue political and ideological agendas. This is where power shapes ‘truth’, not where truth speaks to power. An obvious example is Nazi eugenics, a pseudoscience consigned to the same scientific dustbin that today contains phrenology, astrology, alchemy, various forms of alternative medicine, alongside theories promoted by the Soviet agronomist and biologist Trofim Lysenko, which were central to the USSR’s disastrous collectivist agricultural reforms in the 1930s.In the natural sciences research can be and often is shaped by demands that are thrown up politically, the urgent need to control Covid-19 being an obvious case in point. People expect that their governments will bring to bear the resources of the state to cope with the pandemic, expectations which, as the world has seen, have not always been met, and not only in ‘failed states’.sine qua non of political institutions which enable and sustain impartiality, arguably the key value in liberal democratic governance  in public policymaking. They embrace the language of problem-solving, even when so many policies can only aspire to cope with rather than to ‘solve’ social and other problems  ‘the iron cage’ of modernity Gregory, . Againstqua scientist seeks to act on the ‘high, hard ground where [they] can make effective use of research-based theory and technique’ but in doing so become drawn back into the ‘swampy lowland where situations are confusing “messes” incapable of technical solution’  who heads the Ministry of Health. He has exercised his emergency powers under the Health Act 1956, and the Covid-19 Public Health Response Act 2020, allowing him to command medical officers of health in each of the country’s 20 District Health Boards (DHBs). So this has not been normal governance in normal times Gregory, .The Labour Party-led cabinet in 2020 and its Labour Party successor in 2021 have been heavily reliant on Bloomfield’s expert advice, and that provided through him by other epidemiologists and statistical modellers. This reliance has been repeatedly confirmed publicly by the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, who has prefaced her announcements with, ‘On the advice of the director-general…’, seemingly to say that ‘politics’ has rightfully been taken out of these science-based decisions. But this is hardly the case, because the government has to weigh a range of factors, including the economic effects of lockdowns. So its decisions are inescapably political, rather than purely scientific, choices.This was confirmed publicly early in November 2021 when Ardern changed her phraseology to, ‘After a discussion with the director-general [of health]’ the government had decided to lower the alert level in Auckland. Questioning by journalists confirmed that Bloomfield had advised against doing so. The effects of political pressures on the government, including protests by many Aucklanders, had become more apparent. By this time the government had shifted its strategy from on of ‘elimination’, as applied during 2020, to ‘suppression’ or ‘containment’, given that the Delta outbreak had now made it impossible to keep the virus out of the community. Its urgent push for high vaccination rates, with the Pfizer vaccine, had now become the key plank of its new approach. The former alert level structure – with level four being full lockdown as had applied across the country in March-April 2020, was now replaced by a Covid-19 Protection Framework, colloquially known as the ‘traffic light’ system, whereby different regions had greater or lesser restrictions placed on them, largely based on factors such as vaccination, infection, and hospitalization rates. A ‘red’ area was most heavily constrained – by way of limits of gatherings, access to bars and cafes, retail outlets and so on being dependent on having an official vaccine confirming that the holder had received their double vaccination. Life in ‘green’ locations could proceed as in 2020, when there was no Covid-19 in the community, but by the end of 2021 no part of New Zealand was classified as ‘green’. ‘Orange’ regions were less constrained than ‘red’ ones and more so that ‘green’ ones would have been.The relationship between the prime minister, the Covid-19 response minister, and Bloomfield is fully consistent with the conventions of responsible government embodied in New Zealand’s Westminster-styled parliamentary democracy, with its unitary governmental system. However, it is also a case of virtual technocratic governance, so unusually reliant is the political executive on scientific advice in this case of public policymaking. In this the New Zealand government has tried to strike a politically acceptable balance between the ‘precautionary principle’ and the ‘principle of necessity’. That is, it has decided to be ‘better safe than sorry’ while at the same not restricting people’s rights and liberties disproportionately to the risk of the virus overwhelming the country’s public health system and sharply increasing the mortality rate Raposo, . EmpiricThis political-technocratic approach to the crisis, as also in Norway  of 53 countries and jurisdictions uses 12 data indicators, including virus containment, the quality of health case, vaccination rates, mortality rates, and the easing of border restrictions. At July 2021 New Zealand held third position and Brazil was listed at 35. However, by late September 2021 New Zealand’s ranking had dropped from first to 38th placeAlthough, New Zealand’s Labour government has led substantially in the political polls throughout 2021, its support has been declining markedly since the 2020 election, which was seen by many as ‘the Covid election’, a one-off political phenomenon  institutional, apart from being political. The respective roles of the news media and social media are also crucial. It may also be pertinent that while New Zealand is ranked first equal (with Denmark) in the Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index of 2020, Brazil is in equal 94th place. Similarly, the rate of trust in government in Brazil, 36%, is much lower than the New Zealand rate of 63% OECD, . As ChriThere is no space here to elaborate on the relevance of these variables, except to say that geography is clearly a major difference, one that certainly affects the efficacy of Covid-19 responses. New Zealand is a small country of 5.2 million people, comprising three main islands, so its borders can be sealed quite quickly and effectively. It has extensive and relatively unpopulated rural spaces outside of its cities and towns. Brazil on the other hand with a population of 213 million is a huge land mass, and shares borders with 10 other countries. Cultural and social factors must also influence the different policy outcomes.Nevertheless, it is inconceivable that any country could be relatively successful in controlling the pandemic within its borders without heavy reliance on epidemiological and immunological expertise, whether provided endogenously or exogenously. What may matter even more is the extent to which policymakers act on strongly consensual or highly conflictual scientific advice, and whether political leadership explicitly embraces scientific advice, as in New Zealand, or whether it undermines social trust in scientific advice, as in Brazil.Hypothetically speaking, when policymakers are confronted by strongly conflicted scientific advice political considerations are more likely to influence their decisions than when the converse is the case. But where political polarisation is so extreme that it undermines trust in scientific advice, a moderate level of scientific consensus is not enough in itself to foster a productive relationship between science and politics.The Covid-19 pandemic has had disastrous consequences across the world. However, it may also have provided an opportunity to reflect on an ideal relationship between science and politics in public policymaking. The benefits of good science in dealing with the pandemic are self-evident, and to be highly valued, but so too are the advantages of good politics, especially in restraining technocratic and political elites from abusing their power. In immediately critical situations like the pandemic political power is usually placed in the hands of experts more than is normally the case in liberal democracies, and science is seen as a more desirable component of policymaking than is (mere) politics, but in the end politics is determinative, one way or the other. So, the task is to ensure that the advantages of good politics in public policymaking can prevail over misguided, and often ideologically-disguised, advice proffered by bad science. Similarly, if minimal democratic conditions exist, good science can check bad politics and prevent potentially disastrous outcomes.