Green Space and Physical Activity in Pregnant Women: Evidence From the Growing Up in New Zealand Study

Abstract

The lack of association between green space and physical activity found in this study does not necessarily mean that living in green space will not translate into better pregnancy health. Preference for living in greener neighborhoods should be considered when investigating relationships between green space and physical activity.

Methods for accounting for neighbourhood self-selection in physical activity and dietary behaviour research: a systematic review

“…Nineteen articles considered individual-level environment exposure variables (e.g., total area of park space within 1 km of each participant's home address [30]), 11 considered area-level exposure variables (e.g., percentage of green space within the census areal units in which participants reside [37]) and one article considered an area-level exposure variable but treated it as an individual-level exposure variable in the analysis as there were few individuals within each neighbourhood [18] ( Table 2). Seventeen studies considered only built environment exposures (e.g., retail outlets [28]; residential density [16]; food outlets [17,21,28]).…”

“…Seventeen studies considered only built environment exposures (e.g., retail outlets [28]; residential density [16]; food outlets [17,21,28]). Two considered only natural environment exposures (parks [30]; green space [37]), while three considered only social environment exposures (socioeconomic disadvantage [15,18]; crime [23]). Nine studies considered mixed exposure types.…”

“…Most articles that used model adjustment attempted to capture neighbourhood self-selection by measuring the importance of characteristics (such as local access to schools or recreational facilities) for living or moving to a participant's current neighbourhood or home (11/20) [22,23,25,26,29,30,34,[39][40][41][42], or when looking to move (1/20) [28]. Others considered neighbourhood preference items (2/20) [37,45], such as preference to live in an urban or suburban environment [45], or both the importance of characteristics and preference (2/20) [24,38]. Two studies that reported using model adjustment provided little detail on the neighbourhood selfselection variables [27,32].…”

“…Twelve articles compared results of analyses that accounted for neighbourhood self-selection with results of analyses that did not (Table 3). Most (10/12) had used a model adjustment approach, adjusting for measures of neighbourhood self-selection, and thus compared models with and without adjustment for self-selection variable(s) [26,27,30,32,34,37,39,41,42,45]. Three of these 12 articles presented results from one model only, either with or without adjustment for neighbourhood self-selection, asserting in the results section that adjustment for neighbourhood self-selection had little effect on findings [27,32], or that results were attenuated consequent to adjustment [30].…”

“…Three of these 12 articles presented results from one model only, either with or without adjustment for neighbourhood self-selection, asserting in the results section that adjustment for neighbourhood self-selection had little effect on findings [27,32], or that results were attenuated consequent to adjustment [30]. Six articles presented results for models both with and without adjustment, indicative of only small changes in coefficients or effect estimates for the exposure(s) of interest after adjustment [26,34,37,39,41,45]. In one article examining neighbourhood walkability and physical activity, rather than present findings with and without adjustment, results were presented for the full sample of participants in addition to only those with high neighbourhood selfselection (i.e., those for whom walkability characteristics were important in their selection of neighbourhood) [42].…”