Background: Evidence on associations between environmental factors and accelerometer-derived light-intensity physical activity (LPA) is scarce. The aim of this study was to examine associations between Geographic Information System (GIS)-based neighborhood built environmental factors and accelerometer-derived LPA, and to investigate the moderating effect of age group (adolescents, adults, older adults) on these associations.
Methods: Objective data were used from three similar observational studies conducted in Ghent (Belgium) between 2007 and 2015. Accelerometer data were collected from 1,652 participants during seven consecutive days, and GIS-based neighborhood built environmental factors (residential density, intersection density, park density, public transport density, entropy index) were calculated using sausage buffers of 500 m and 1,000 m around the home addresses of all participants. Linear mixed models were performed to estimate the associations.
Results: A small but significant negative association was observed between residential density (500 m buffer) and LPA in the total sample (B = -0.002; SE = 0.0001; p = 0.04), demonstrating that every increase of 1,000 dwellings per surface buffer was associated with a two minute decrease in LPA. Intersection density, park density, public transport density and entropy index were not related to LPA, and moderating effects of age group were absent.
Conclusions: The small association, in combination with other non-significant associations suggests that the neighborhood built environment, as classically measured in moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity research, is of limited importance for LPA. More research is needed to unravel how accelerometer-derived LPA is accumulated, and to gain insight into its determinants.
Keywords: Built environment; Light physical activity; Physical activity; Physical environment; Residential density.
©2022 Compernolle et al.