Objective: the study aims to evaluate the reproducibility between the International Physical Activity Questionnaire and the American College of Sports Medicine/American Heart Association criteria to classify the physical activity profile in an adult population living in Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil.
Methods: population-based cross-sectional study, including 930 adults of both genders. The reliability was evaluated by Kappa statistics, estimated according to socio-demographic strata.
Results: the kappa estimates showed good agreement between the two criteria in all strata. However, higher prevalence of "actives" was found by using the American College of Sports Medicine/American Heart Association.
Conclusions: although the estimates have indicated good agreement, the findings suggest caution in choosing the criteria to classify physical activity profile mainly when "walking" is the main modality of physical activity.