Social-ecological determinants of leisure-time physical activity among church-going African Americans in Indianapolis: A structural equation analysis

Objective: To develop and test an explicative model of leisure-time physical activity (LTPA), including six contributory factors to LTPA within a social-ecological framework including self-efficacy, self-regulation, social support, perceived physical environment, outcome expectancy, and policy belief.

Methods: A social-ecological model of LTPA using the structural equation modeling (SEM) was conducted in a sample of 649 African Americans (n=569 in the analysis, 69% female, and 41.17±14.05 years) recruited from 27 churches in Indianapolis, Indiana. The primary outcome measure was LTPA which was categorized into two groups: lower than 150 minutes vs. equal or more than 150 minutes LTPA per week. Age, gender, and six latent variables were used to predict LTPA.

Results: The SEM indicated a good fit of SE model to the data, which explained 37.5% of the variance (pseudo R²) observed in LTPA. LTPA was influenced (1) directly and significantly by only self-regulation and gender, (2) indirectly and significantly by social support, self-efficacy, perceived access to LTPA facilities, and positive outcome expectancy, ordered by magnitude, and (3) overall and significantly by self-regulation, social support, self-efficacy, gender, and negative outcome expectancy, ordered by magnitude. Age and policy beliefs did not significantly influence LTPA directly, indirectly and overall, whereas they significantly influenced other latent variables by different magnitudes.

Conclusions: These findings helped to clarify the relationships among variables and LTPA in a multilevel social-ecological framework advocated by an increasing number of researchers in a sample of churching-going African Americans. Multilevel interventions should be applied to improving regular physical activity engagement.