IntroductionHealth-focused communities can promote physical activity for children by providing them with safe and supportive environments to move. Across the COVID-19 pandemic many community spaces and services were closed due to public health restrictions. During the pandemic, Atlantic Canada uniquely implemented an agreement between four provinces to restrict travel and reduce the spread of the virus. The “Atlantic bubble” led to fewer cases of COVID-19 and restrictions to community spaces and services. With restrictions now removed, community spaces and services likely play a critical role in facilitating the recalibration of children’s movement. Perspectives from families who experienced the “Atlantic bubble” may offer valuable insights to the use of these spaces during and after the removal of restrictions.ObjectiveThis study explored the role of community spaces and services on their child’s physical activity across the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspectives of Nova Scotia caregivers.MethodsWe employed a qualitative description approach and conducted semi-structured interviews with 14 caregivers of children aged 5–11 years who lived in Nova Scotia, Canada. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis.ResultsFour themes were generated: (1) Public health restrictions limited community movement behaviors and social connections, (2) Spaces, locations, and environments influenced how families experienced physical activity during public health restrictions, (3) Virtual realities: screens supported a new sense of community for children throughout the pandemic, and (4) “Facilitated” and “forced adaptability”: public health restrictions changed family dynamics, routines, and movement behaviors.ConclusionDespite living in the “Atlantic bubble,” Nova Scotian caregivers shared that COVID-19 related public health restrictions shifted their family’s dynamics, routines, and ability to engage in physical activity within their communities. Community spaces and services can be leveraged to recalibrate children’s movement as pandemic-related restrictions are reduced. In future public health crises, community spaces and services should remain in place to whatever extent possible to reduce the collateral consequences of public health restrictions on children’s health.

IntroductionHealth-focused communities can promote physical activity for children by providing them with safe and supportive environments to move. Across the COVID-19 pandemic many community spaces and services were closed due to public health restrictions. During the pandemic, Atlantic Canada uniquely implemented an agreement between four provinces to restrict travel and reduce the spread of the virus. The “Atlantic bubble” led to fewer cases of COVID-19 and restrictions to community spaces and services. With restrictions now removed, community spaces and services likely play a critical role in facilitating the recalibration of children’s movement. Perspectives from families who experienced the “Atlantic bubble” may offer valuable insights to the use of these spaces during and after the removal of restrictions.ObjectiveThis study explored the role of community spaces and services on their child’s physical activity across the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspectives of Nova Scotia caregivers.MethodsWe employed a qualitative description approach and conducted semi-structured interviews with 14 caregivers of children aged 5–11 years who lived in Nova Scotia, Canada. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis.ResultsFour themes were generated: (1) Public health restrictions limited community movement behaviors and social connections, (2) Spaces, locations, and environments influenced how families experienced physical activity during public health restrictions, (3) Virtual realities: screens supported a new sense of community for children throughout the pandemic, and (4) “Facilitated” and “forced adaptability”: public health restrictions changed family dynamics, routines, and movement behaviors.ConclusionDespite living in the “Atlantic bubble,” Nova Scotian caregivers shared that COVID-19 related public health restrictions shifted their family’s dynamics, routines, and ability to engage in physical activity within their communities. Community spaces and services can be leveraged to recalibrate children’s movement as pandemic-related restrictions are reduced. In future public health crises, community spaces and services should remain in place to whatever extent possible to reduce the collateral consequences of public health restrictions on children’s health.

This dataset includes tweets from provincial and territorial government officials. In cases when a health official does not use Twitter (e.g. Dr. Bonnie Henry), other official accounts for the province or territory have been substituted. The dataset does not include tweets from federal government officials. The tweet IDs were collected using Documenting the Now's Twarc library (https://github.com/DocNow/twarc). The date of the earliest available tweet is different for each handle. The date of the latest available tweet will not be later than the upload date for each file. See the file-level information below. The tweet ids were extracted from the raw JSON files retrieved from Twitter using Twarc. However, Twitter's terms of use do not permit the sharing of the raw JSON files for this dataset. The raw JSON files can be retrieved from Twitter, provided the content is still available, using the 'hydrate' command within Twarc. The researchers retained the source JSON files and may be contacted by other researchers if they wish to access them. The files of tweet ids will be updated over time and this metadata, the files and this readme.txt file will be updated accordingly. Raw JSON files were harvested using Twarc's 'timeline' command. The 'timeline' command retrieves the most recent tweets from the specified handle, to a maximum of approximately 3,300 tweets. The data for each handle was collected approximately weekly, starting in January 2021. In order not to lose earlier tweets, we concatenated the JSON for each new 'timeline' crawl to the earlier crawls and de-duplicated the combined JSON using Twarc's 'deduplicate' command. We then used Twarc's 'dehydrate' command to extract just the tweet ids from the deduplicate JSON file. Finally, we sorted the tweet ids numerically so that they would appear in ascending date order. The basic workflow looks like: twarc timeline --> concatenate JSON files --> deduplicate resulting JSON file --> dehydrate tweet ids --> sort tweet ids. The Twitter handles include: @ArrudaHoracio: Dr. Horacio Arruda, Directeur national de santé publique et SMA en santé publique MSSS Québec. Tweets in this file start on 2013-03-11. @CMOH_Alberta: Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health. Tweets in this file start on 2020-03-26. @CMOH_NL: Dr. Janice Fitzgerald, Newfoundland and Labrador's Chief Medical Officer of Health. Tweets in this file start on 2020-04-27. @GOVofNUNAVUT: Government of Nunavut. Tweets in this file start on 2018-08-20. @GlavineLeo: Leo Glavine, MLA Kings West, Nova Scotia, Minister of Health and Wellness, Minister of Seniors. Tweets in this file start on 2017-04-17. @HealthNS: Nova Scotia Health. Tweets in this file start on 2019-05-D8. @Johnrockdoc: John Haggie, Newfoundland and Labrador's Minister, Health & Community Services. Tweets in this file start on 2020-01-19. @IainTRankin: Iain Rankin, Premier of Nova Scotia from 2021-02-23. MLA for Timberlea-Prospect. Tweets in this file start on 2012-08-08. @MLAStefanson: Heather Stefanson, Manitoba's Minister of Health and Seniors Care, MLA for Tuxedo Tweets in this file start on 2012-02-11. @MerrimanPaul: Paul Merriman. Saskatchewan's Minister of Social Services. Tweets in this file start on 2018-11-18. @MinistreMcCann: Danielle McCann. Députée de Sanguinet - Ministre de l'Enseignement supérieur. Tweets in this file start on 2019-03-14. @NBHealth: New Brunswick Department of Health. Tweets in this file start on 2013-02-26. @NWT_CPHO: Kami Kandola, Northwest Territories Chief Public Officer of Health. Tweets in this file start on 2013-10-16. @PFrostOldCrow: Pauline Frost Yukon MLA for Vuntut Gwich'in. Minister of Health and Social Services, Environment and Minister responsible for the Yukon Housing Corporation. Tweets in this file start on 2016-08-05. @SaskHealth: Saskatchewan Health Authority official twitter account. Tweets in this file start on 2020-03-15. @ShephardDorothy: Dorothy Shephard, Minister of Health for New Brunswick. Tweets in this file start on 2016-04-16. @StephenMcNeil: Stephen McNeil, Premier of Nova Scotia from 2013-10-23 to 2021-02-23. MLA for Annapolis. Tweets in this file start on 2017-05-05. @adriandix: Adrian Dix, MLA for Vancouver-Kingsway and BC Minister of Health. Tweets in this file start on 2019-09-20. @celliottability: Christine Elliott, Deputy Premier of Ontario and Minister of Health, MPP for Newmarket-Aurora. Tweets in this file start on 2018-02-24. @epdevilla: Dr. Eileen de Villa, Toronto's Medical Officer of Health. Tweets in this file start on 2013-02-21. @jsjaylward: James Aylward, Minister for Transportation & Infrastructure for PEI. MLA for District 6 Stratford-Keppoch. Tweets in this file start on 2015-03-30. @juliegreenMLA: Julie Green, NWT Minister of Health and Social Services, Minister Responsible for Persons wit... Visit https://dataone.org/datasets/sha256%3A6926de50d5ad28e6d3b4820345ba4dc1b5dd549afa67117940a8819dd53b98cf for complete metadata about this dataset.