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International Ipreschooler Surveillance Study Among Asians and otheRs (IISSAAR): screen media use and off-screen behaviours among preschool children living in selected urban cities in some countries in Asia and elsewhere.
IISSAAR Summary

The IISSAAR research examined on- and off-screen behaviors of preschool children in nine countries: Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, South Korea, China, Italy, Spain, and Finland. The research focused on parent-report of children's screen media and non-screen behaviors and their adherence to World Health Organization (WHO) 24-hour movement guidelines. The WHO recommends that for each 24-hour cycle, preschool children should have at least 180 minutes of physical activity, less than one hour of screen time, and 10-13 hours of good quality sleep. The research was conducted between 2020 and 2022, involved 8,170 parents that utilized the SMALLQ® and PEDsQL™ questionnaires to garner caregiver responses about children’s daily on and off-screen behaviors and perceived quality of life. Results showed significant variations in children’s screen time across countries, with Singapore and Indonesia having the highest relative screen times during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2.7 hours per day in 2020. Contrarily, Japanese children had the lowest relative daily screen time of 1.9 hours, compared to 2.3 hours for South Korean, 2.5 hours for Thai children and 2.0 hours for Finnish children in the COVID-19 pandemic year of 2020. Adherence to the WHO 24-hour movement guidelines was low with the highest compliance for sleep at 70%, followed by physical activity at 43% and screen time at 40%. Spain (15%) and China (12%) had the highest percentage of children meeting all three guidelines, while Japan (3%), Thailand (5%), Singapore (6%), and South Korea (7%) had the lowest guideline compliance. Overall, across all nine countries 13% met zero guidelines while 9% met all three guidelines.
IISSAAR Research Brief & Closure Report
International Ipreschooler Surveillance Study Among Asians & Others Summary

IISSAAR Broad Impact

IISSAAR Academic Impact

Presentation by Professor Michael Chia (PI) @ Singapore University of Social Science
