Income and environmental factors predicting weekly minutes of moderate physical activity among Hawaii residents

Individuals in lower socio-economic groups are less likely to meet exercise recommendations (i.e., 5+days of 30+minutes of moderate physical activity per week) and are more likely to live in unsafe neighborhoods where few people exercise. This study examined how income and environmental factors were related to weekly minutes (m) of moderate physical activity (PA) among Hawaii residents.

Cross-sectional telephone surveys were conducted in 2007 with 3607 adults. Participants were asked a subset of 13 questions about neighborhood supportiveness for PA. Questions were dichotomized and grouped into facilities and resources, safety, social norms and appearance. After deleting participants with missing data, the sample size was 1510. PA was truncated at 240m per week and a stepwise linear regression model was tested with demographic and environmental variables.

The majority of participants were female (65%), married (60.7%), age 35-54 (40.3%), and had completed some college or more (55.1%). Minutes of PA increased by income category and neighborhood social norms were highest for the top two income categories. Safety was significantly greater in the highest income group (p<0.05) than the lowest three, but did not predict PA minutes. Income and social norms were significant predictors for minutes of moderate PA per week, F(2,1489)=10.262, p< 0.001. Other environmental and demographic variables were non-significant.

This study indicated that higher incomes and more social norms for exercise were both related to more weekly minutes of moderate PA. Future PA interventions could target lower income groups and focus on improving social norms for exercise.