Association of physical activity and neighborhood environment among Japanese adults
Introduction
Regular physical activity reduces the risk of mortality, incidence of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and some kinds of cancers (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1996). However, large proportions of the population in Japan and in many countries in the world are insufficiently physically active (Haskell et al., 2007, Sjöström et al., 2006). According to pedometer measurements in the Japan National Health and Nutrition Survey 2005, only 21.3% of Japanese walk more than 10,000 steps a day (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan, 2008). Physical activity promotion is one of the priorities of public health, but to establish effective intervention strategies, evidence of physical activity correlates is needed. To date, many studies have focused on individual demographics and psychological correlates. More recent research has revealed that certain neighborhood environmental characteristics, such as residential density, access to destinations, walking facilities, aesthetics, and safety also are consistently associated with physical activity (Saelens and Handy, 2008, Gebel et al., 2007, Trost et al., 2002, Sallis and Owen, 2002, Hill et al., 2003, Humpel et al., 2002, Owen et al., 2004). Manipulations of environmental variables are expected to have a long-term and substantial impact on the population, which could complement the usually short-term effects of individually-targeted interventions.
Although an increasing number of studies examining the association between physical activity and environment have been reported, most studies were conducted in Western countries, especially in the United States and Australia (Humpel et al., 2002, De Bourdeaudhuij et al., 2003, Saelens et al., 2003, Owen et al., 2004, Wendel-Vos et al., 2007). On the other hand, few studies on physical activity and neighborhood environments could be located in English language journals from Asian countries including Japan (Takano et al., 2002). Limited variability of environmental attributes where the studies were conducted is one of the limitations of this research area. Thus, one of the directions of this research area is to conduct studies in a greater variety of cultures and geographic settings and to examine if evidences from US and Australia could be generalized to other countries.
Japan is the most economically developed Asian country, but it has a population density that is more than ten times greater than that of the US. Because both the culture and physical environment are very different from the US and Australia, while the level of economic development is roughly comparable, Japan is an interesting country in which to test the generalizability of built environment–physical activity associations. The physical activity environment in Japan appears to be different from the US and Australia on several dimensions. For instance, in contrast to Australia, the low proportion of commuters who drive their cars to work, only 32% in the Tokyo metropolitan area and 36% in the Osaka metropolitan area (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, 2008), compared with 80.1% in Australia (Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2006), may be due to environmental differences, such as the extent of walkable environment and the development of public transportation network, between the two countries. The difference of overweight prevalence (BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2) between Japan; 27.6% in males, 21.4% in females (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan, 2008) and the US; 70.8% in males, 61.8% in females (Ogden et al., 2006) may be partially explained by the differences in environment and physical activity.
In the present study, we examined the association between the perceived neighborhood environment and physical activity among Japanese adults using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire and its Environmental Module.
Section snippets
Participants and data collection
Four hundred and ninety-two Japanese adults aged 20 to 74 years (61%: male) were recruited. Study collaborators at eight worksites, including four universities and four private companies, approached employees at the worksites or their acquaintances as potential research volunteers. Seven of eight worksites were located in and around the Tokyo metropolitan area, while one was in Himeji city, located in western Japan, which has a population of about 536,000. If the person was interested in
Results
Table 2 presents the demographic characteristics of participants. The sample included 62% of male. Age was widely distributed from 20 to 74 years, and the mean age (SD) was 42 (12) years. The locations of participants were mainly urban settings. In this population, 43% of participants walked more than 150 min/week. The characteristics of 93 participants for test–retest reliability were similar to the overall sample.
Spearman correlation coefficients and Kappa statistics for test–retest
Discussion
The results of this study demonstrated that 4 of 11 environmental variables: residential density, access to shops, presence of sidewalks and presence of bike lanes, were significantly associated with walking or MVPA among Japanese adults. Adults who reported living in neighborhoods with high residential density, good access to shops, presence of sidewalks, and presence of bike lanes had higher physical activity levels. In addition, borderline significant associations between physical activity
Conclusion
Four environmental variables, residential density, access to shops, presence of sidewalks and presence of bike lanes, were significantly associated with walking or moderate to vigorous physical activity among Japanese adults. These results support the generalizability of findings from previous studies conducted in Western countries to Japan and suggest that targeting these environmental characteristics could be an effective strategy for promoting physical activity.
Conflict of interest statement
The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the collaboration of Dr. Eiji Koshimizu, Tokyo University of Pharmacy and Life Sciences and the Japanese Society of Test and Measurement in Health and Physical Education in this study. This study was supported by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan.
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