Longitudinal associations between perceptions of the neighbourhood environment and physical activity in adolescents: evidence from the Olympic Regeneration in East London (ORiEL) study

Abstract

BackgroundMost UK adolescents do not achieve recommended levels of physical activity. Previous studies suggested that perceptions of the neighbourhood environment could contribute to explain differences in physical activity behaviours. We aimed to examine whether five measures of perceptions – perceived bus stop proximity, traffic safety, street connectivity, enjoyment of the neighbourhood for walking/cycling, and personal safety – were longitudinally associated with common forms of physical activity, namely walking to school, walking for leisure, and a composite measure of outdoor physical activity. We further aimed to investigate the moderating role of gender.MethodsWe used longitudinal data from the Olympic Regeneration in East London (ORiEL) study, a prospective cohort study. In 2012, 3106 adolescents aged 11 to 12 were recruited from 25 schools in 4 deprived boroughs of East London. Adolescents were followed-up in 2013 and 2014. The final sample includes 2260 adolescents surveyed at three occasions. We estimated logistic regression models using Generalised Estimating Equations to test the plausibility of hypotheses on the nature of the longitudinal associations (general association, cumulative effect, co-varying trajectories), adjusting for potential confounders. Item non-response was handled using multiple imputation.ResultsLongitudinal analyses indicate little evidence that perceptions of the neighbourhood are important predictors of younger adolescent physical activity. There was weak evidence that greater perceived proximity to bus stops is associated with a small decrease in the probability of walking for leisure. Results also indicate that poorer perception of personal safety decreases the probability of walking for leisure. There was some indication that better perception of street connectivity is associated with more outdoor physical activity. Finally, we found very little evidence that the associations between perceptions of the neighbourhood and physical activity differed by gender.ConclusionsThis study suggests that younger adolescents’ perceptions of their neighbourhood environment, and changes in these perceptions, did not consistently predict physical activity in a deprived and ethnically diverse urban population. Future studies should use situation-specific measures of the neighbourhood environment and physical activity to better capture the hypothesised processes and explore the relative roles of the objective environment, parental and adolescents’ perceptions in examining differences in types of physical activity.

Longitudinal associations between neighbourhood trust, social support and physical activity in adolescents: evidence from the Olympic Regeneration in East London (ORiEL) study

“…Owing to the skewed distribution of the total time spent on each form of PA and to the fact that no adequate transformation could be found, the four outcome variables were dichotomised as ‘activity reported at least once’ versus not. 30 31…”

“…The adjusted models included gender, ethnicity (White UK, White Mixed, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Black Caribbean, Black African or Other), household composition (both parents vs not), time lived in the neighbourhood (≤5 years vs > 5), free-school meal status, family affluence (three categories from the revised Family Affluence Scale II) and the presence of health condition (none vs 1+; from the following conditions: mobility problems, longstanding illness, anaemia, asthma, diabetes, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, hay fever, hearing and eyesight problems). 30 31…”

“…We handled interaction terms between the exposure variables and gender by imputing the data for each gender separately. 30 31 The imputation model was compatible with the most saturated model of analysis. 33 We used a ‘burn in’ period of 4050 iterations for boys and girls, and 1000 between-imputation iterations to generate 20 imputed datasets.…”

Predictive factors of students' physical activity in different learning interest phases: A cluster analysis of physical education

“…Moreover, environmental perceptions are complementary predictors of physical activity behavior (Orstad et al, 2017). Berger et al (2019) show that younger adolescents' environmental perceptions and changes in these perceptions do not consistently predict their interest in physical activity.…”

Subjective and objective indicators of neighbourhood safety and physical activity among UK adolescents

“…In addition, low neighbourhood perceived safety has been associated with reduced physical activity in 11-16 year olds in Chicago (Molnar et al ., 2004). A UK study, using longitudinal data from East London, reported that adolescents’ perceptions of their neighbourhood safety was not associated with self-reported physical activity (Berger et al ., 2019). Similarly, research in the US found that girls, but not boys, exposed to high crime neighbourhoods (measured with census tract-level data on crime reports) had lower odds (OR = 0.74, 95% CI = 0.59-0.92) of engaging in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (Pia Chaparro, Bilfield and Theall, 2019).…”