Review and special articleEnvironmental factors associated with adults’ participation in physical activity: A review☆
Section snippets
Introductions
Regular physical activity is strongly associated with better physical and psychological health outcomes, and the promotion of physical activity is now a high public health priority.1 To develop relevant policies and effective interventions, it is necessary to identify the factors that can be changed to influence physical activity behavior.2 Such factors have been classified within seven domains: demographic and biological, psychological, cognitive and emotional, behavioral attributes and
Methods
Our primary inclusion criterion was relationships between particular physical environment attributes and physical activity behaviors. Only studies that assessed some physical activity behavior or behaviors as an outcome variable or variables were included. Specific items within the assessment instruments from each study that related to the physical environment were, where possible, extracted for the purposes of this review. If a theory or construct was mentioned as guiding the study, this was
Results
Using the above criteria, we identified 19 studies, of which 16 examined the relationship between the perceived physical environments and physical activity.14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 Four of the studies used objective measures of the environment, including place of residence (using postal codes), physical distance, and accessibility of facilities.29, 30, 31, 32 One study included both perceived and objective measures.29 Twelve of the 19 studies identified an
Discussion
The associations of environmental attributes with physical activity have thus far been examined in a relatively limited set of studies. This review has examined the evidence for these relationships and highlighted relevant aspects of the measures that have been used in these studies. There were inherent difficulties, as some studies combined several physical environment items into an “overall” measure and compared that total score to physical activity behavior. Where it was possible to identify
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