TY - JOUR
T1 - The association between residential density and physical activity among urban adults in regional China
AU - Wang, Zhiyong
AU - Qin, Zhenzhen
AU - He, Jing
AU - Ma, Yuyang
AU - Ye, Qing
AU - Xiong, Yaqing
AU - Xu, Fei
N1 - Funding Information:
The study design, data collection and management were supported by Nanjing Medical Science and technique Development Foundation (QRX11038), China (Recipient: Prof. Fei Xu), while data analysis, interpretation and manuscript writing were supported by a Program Grant (JSKXKT2018) from Jiangsu Province Association of Science and Technology, China (Recipient: Prof. Yaqiong Xiong).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 The Author(s).
PY - 2019/10/7
Y1 - 2019/10/7
N2 - Background: Studies from Western countries reported a positive relationship between residential density (RD) and physical activity (PA) among adults. There was no such study from China, a rapidly-urbanizing country in the world. This study aimed to investigate the RD-PA association among urban adults in China. Methods: A multistage sampling approach was used to randomly select participants (aged 35-74 years old) in urban areas of Nanjing in 2017. The outcome variable was PA (dichotomized into "sufficient" or "insufficient"), while the independent variable was RD (tertiled into three sub-groups). Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were computed to examine the RD-PA association using mixed-effects logistic regression models with adjustment for age, sex, nationality, marriage, educational attainment, employment status, body weight status, green space and neighborhood-level clustering effects. Results: Of the 1568 eligible participants, 1551 were interviewed (response rate = 98.9%), with the mean age (standard deviation) of 54.7 (11.1) years old, and 46% of men. After adjustment for potential confounders and community-level clustering effects, participants lived in communities with higher (OR = 0.31, 95% CI = 0.21, 0.47) and middle (OR = 0.70, 95% CI = 0.50, 0.99) residential density were significantly less likely to achieve sufficient physical activity relative to their counterparts lived in the lower densed communities. Similar negative RD-PA association was examined for men or women, separately. The difference in the ORs between the middle and higher RD tertiles was also statistically significant (P < 0.01). Conclusions: A negatively gradient RD-PA association, independent of body weight status and green space, was observed among urban adults in regional China. It has public health implications for China to help residents' promote and maintain physical activity through planning and constructing PA-/health-friendly built environment in future.
AB - Background: Studies from Western countries reported a positive relationship between residential density (RD) and physical activity (PA) among adults. There was no such study from China, a rapidly-urbanizing country in the world. This study aimed to investigate the RD-PA association among urban adults in China. Methods: A multistage sampling approach was used to randomly select participants (aged 35-74 years old) in urban areas of Nanjing in 2017. The outcome variable was PA (dichotomized into "sufficient" or "insufficient"), while the independent variable was RD (tertiled into three sub-groups). Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were computed to examine the RD-PA association using mixed-effects logistic regression models with adjustment for age, sex, nationality, marriage, educational attainment, employment status, body weight status, green space and neighborhood-level clustering effects. Results: Of the 1568 eligible participants, 1551 were interviewed (response rate = 98.9%), with the mean age (standard deviation) of 54.7 (11.1) years old, and 46% of men. After adjustment for potential confounders and community-level clustering effects, participants lived in communities with higher (OR = 0.31, 95% CI = 0.21, 0.47) and middle (OR = 0.70, 95% CI = 0.50, 0.99) residential density were significantly less likely to achieve sufficient physical activity relative to their counterparts lived in the lower densed communities. Similar negative RD-PA association was examined for men or women, separately. The difference in the ORs between the middle and higher RD tertiles was also statistically significant (P < 0.01). Conclusions: A negatively gradient RD-PA association, independent of body weight status and green space, was observed among urban adults in regional China. It has public health implications for China to help residents' promote and maintain physical activity through planning and constructing PA-/health-friendly built environment in future.
KW - Adults
KW - Built environment
KW - China
KW - Physical activity
KW - Residential density
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85072953548&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1186/s12889-019-7593-4
DO - 10.1186/s12889-019-7593-4
M3 - Article
C2 - 31590643
AN - SCOPUS:85072953548
VL - 19
JO - BMC public health
JF - BMC public health
SN - 1471-2458
IS - 1
M1 - 1279
ER -