Leisure time physical activity assessment of American adults through an analysis of time diaries collected in 1981.

Abstract

One of the 1990 Health Objectives established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is for 60 per cent of adults 18-65 years of age to be participating regularly in vigorous physical exercise. Unfortunately, no valid and practical measurement system is available that will allow assessment of leisure time physical activity participation of large populations. Consequently, not only is it difficult to assess progress toward the 1990 goal, an accurate baseline from which to measure potential progress does not exist. This paper presents a time diary technique for measuring aggregate population physical activity participation and utilizes actual time diaries collected from adults by the Institute for Social Research in 1981 to arrive at a possible baseline. The results indicated that time diaries are a viable method for assessing aggregate physical activity behavior of large populations. American Adults were quite sedentary in 1981. Over a period of one week, 31% undertook no leisure time physical activity. Only 14 per cent expended more than 1600 kcals/week in leisure time physical activity, and 10 per cent met the DHHS physical activity requirements.

Effects of Recall Bias and Nonresponse Bias on Self-Report Estimates of Angling Participation

“…Telephone interviews requiring short recall intervals and having the greatest sampling during appropriate periods would also assure some control over weekly and seasonal fluctuations. This approach has received widespread and successful use by luster and Stafford (1985) and Brooks (1987), among others, to reduce the potential for recall bias when asking subjects to account for allocation of time spent on, and frequency of, leisure-related activities.…”

Exercise adherence or maintenance among older adults: 1-year follow-up study.

“…One limitation of the present study was the use of a self-report measure of exercise participation, because bias in self reports of exercise may have confounded the data regarding exercise maintenance. However, there is no commonly used self-report measure of physical activity that is both reliable and valid (Brooks, 1987). The measure in this study was useful in that it provided a list of specific physical activities, while also providing space for subjects to add further activities, and it permitted quantification of activities in kilocalories.…”

A Causal Modeling Analysis of Sociodemographics and Moderate to Vigorous Physical Activity Behavior of American Adults

“…REsEARCH Respondents were asked to estimate their level of participation from one of11 categories: 0 days in the past 12 months, 1-4 days, 5-9 days, 10-14, 15-19,20-24,25-29, !0-!9, 40-49, 50-59, and 60 days or more. In survey research, this is termed a stylized questionnaire and biases produced from this strategy are discussed fully elsewhere (Brooks, 1987). The mostserious biasis that respondents generally are not very accurate in recalling their level of participation.…”

“…Of more serious concern, however, is that some respondents misrepresent their participation status (Brooks, 1987), and as many as one-third ofthose reporting participation in some activities may in fact be nonparticipants. It is not clear yet if this is a more prevalent behavior with some sub-groups over others.…”