Environmental and personal correlates of physical activity and sedentary behavior in African American women: An ecological momentary assessment study

Abstract

The authors of this study examined within-person associations of environmental factors (weather, built and social environmental barriers) and personal factors (daily hassles, affect) with moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and sedentary behavior (SB) in African American women aged 25-64 years living in metropolitan Chicago (n = 97). In 2012-13, for seven days, women wore an accelerometer and were signaled five times per day to complete a survey covering environmental and personal factors on a study-provided smartphone. Day-level measures of each were derived, and mixed regression models were used to test associations. Poor weather was associated with a 27.3% reduction in daily MVPA. Associations between built and social environmental barriers and daily MVPA or SB were generally not statistically significant. Negative affect at the first daily signal was associated with a 38.6% decrease in subsequent daily MVPA and a 33.2-minute increase in subsequent daily SB. Each one-minute increase in MVPA during the day was associated with a 2.2% higher likelihood of positive affect at the end of the day. SB during the day was associated with lower subsequent positive affect. Real-time interventions that address overcoming poor weather and negative affect may help African American women increase MVPA and/or decrease SB.

How many days of global positioning system (GPS) monitoring do you need to measure activity space environments in health research?

“…In other words, there is more within-person day-to-day variation in activity-space size and environmental exposures than between-person variation. This suggests that non-time weighted activity spaces may be helpful to understand the role of the environment in within-person day-to-day variability in health behaviors and other health-related outcomes (e.g., mood, stress, blood pressure) (Dunton, Atienza 2009, Dunton 2017, Zenk, Horoi et al 2014, Zenk, Horoi et al 2017, Maltz, Gordon et al 1991).…”

Neighborhood Social Environment and Cardiovascular Disease Risk

“…These data can be obtained through mobile devices, such as smartphone applications [73]. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) has become increasingly popular and has been applied in behavioral studies related to PA [74-76]. This allows researchers to repeatedly measure psychosocial factors (e.g.…”

“…Measures of social environment factors, like perceived safety or social disorder, can be time-stamped, which permits researchers to link them temporally to objectively assessed data through GPS and accelerometer data measuring PA. Such an approach has been employed previously to measure within-person variability in mood and PA [76], and relationships between neighborhood social characteristics, PA and sedentary behavior [76].…”

Social ecological factors associated with physical activity and screen time amongst mothers from disadvantaged neighbourhoods over three years

“…No significant associations were found between any potential independent variables and transport-related physical activity. Evidence suggests that transport-related physical activity is strongly influenced by the physical and neighbourhood environment [23,56,57]. Therefore, mother's participation in this type of physical activity may be more influenced by factors that were not captured in this study, such as proximity to local shops [23], important destinations (e.g., cafes, parks) and services (e.g., doctors, library), access to dedicated cycles and walking lanes and volume of traffic on roads [56,57].…”

“…Evidence suggests that transport-related physical activity is strongly influenced by the physical and neighbourhood environment [ 23 , 56 , 57 ]. Therefore, mother’s participation in this type of physical activity may be more influenced by factors that were not captured in this study, such as proximity to local shops [ 23 ], important destinations (e.g., cafes, parks) and services (e.g., doctors, library), access to dedicated cycles and walking lanes and volume of traffic on roads [ 56 , 57 ]. Transport-related physical activity may also be influenced by the volume of mothers’ child-oriented tasks [ 58 – 60 ] such as having to pick up children after school and take them to after-school activities, shopping or other routine tasks.…”