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Attitudes and beliefs associated with leisure-time physical activity among African American adults.

ABSTRACT: More than 60% of African American adults do not meet recommendations for moderate physical activity. We sought to discover the extent to which health attitudes and beliefs are associated with leisure-time physical activity in this population.Cross-sectional study.African American adults were asked about their health attitudes and beliefs during a national survey.Participants were 807 African American men and women aged 18 years and older. Random-digit dialing was employed, sampling telephone numbers by geographical region, area code, and population size.Participants were asked six health belief questions on the importance of exercise and body weight in health. Logistic regression was used to determine which of these factors were associated with physical activity participation.The percent of respondents participating in some form of physical activity during the past month was 87.1% in men and 82.9% in women. Factors associated with previous month physical activity in men were perceived personal importance of exercise (P < .001) and necessity of exercise for health (P = .018). In women, perceived personal importance of exercise (P < .001), necessity of exercise for health (P = .006), and having enough activity space (P = .017) were associated with physical activity participation.Though the direction of causation is unknown, having the attitude that it is important to exercise or be physically active for health predicts physical activity participation in both African American men and women. Creating a sense of importance of physical activity to relieve stress and foster good health may stimulate physical activity participation in African American adults.

SUBMITTER: Affuso O

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3074974 | biostudies-literature | 2011

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Attitudes and beliefs associated with leisure-time physical activity among African American adults.

Affuso Olivia O Cox Tiffany L TL Durant Nefertiti H NH Allison David B DB

Ethnicity & disease 20110101 1

<h4>Objective</h4>More than 60% of African American adults do not meet recommendations for moderate physical activity. We sought to discover the extent to which health attitudes and beliefs are associated with leisure-time physical activity in this population.<h4>Design</h4>Cross-sectional study.<h4>Setting</h4>African American adults were asked about their health attitudes and beliefs during a national survey.<h4>Participants</h4>Participants were 807 African American men and women aged 18 year ...[more]

PMID: 21462732

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Context-free outcome measures, such as overall leisure-time physical activity (LTPA), are habitually applied to study the neighborhood built environment correlates of physical activity. This cross sectional study identifies and empirically tests potential methodological limitations related to the use of context-free measures and discusses how these may help in the interpretation of inconsistent associations between participation in moderate-to-vigorous LTPA and objectively measured neighborhood-level built environment attributes. METHODS:We employ a public participation geographic information system (PPGIS), an advanced participatory mapping method, to study the spatial distribution of moderate-to-vigorous LTPA among adult urban Finnish residents (n 1322). Secondary sources of GIS land-use and sport facility data were used to disaggregate respondent-mapped LTPA by the behavioral context, such as indoor and outdoor sport facilities, green spaces, and other public open spaces. Associations between the use of the identified LTPA settings and a range of objectively measured neighborhood built environment attributes were studied with multilevel logistic regression models. RESULTS:Disaggregated by behavioral context, we observed varied and partly opposite built environment correlates for LTPA. The use of indoor and outdoor sport facilities showed no significant associations with their neighborhood availability, but were significantly associated with personal-level attributes. By contrast, participation in LTPA in green and built public open space shared significant associations with access to and availability of neighborhood green space that persisted after controlling for personal-level covariates. Moreover, neighborhood distances up to 1600 m poorly captured participation in moderate-to-vigorous LTPA, as, on average, 40% of visits were located further from home. However, we found the immediate home environment to be an important LTPA setting for the least active participants. CONCLUSIONS:This study demonstrates that LTPA can be a highly heterogeneous measure regarding both the spatial distribution and the environmental correlates of behavioral contexts. The results show that context-free LTPA outcome measures yield inconsistent associations with built environment exposure variables, challenging the applicability of such measures in designing neighborhood-level built environment interventions.

Dataset Information

Attitudes and beliefs associated with leisure-time physical activity among African American adults.

Publications

Attitudes and beliefs associated with leisure-time physical activity among African American adults.

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