Abstract
Background: Physical activity (PA) in early adolescence has been demonstrated to be associated with not only the risk of pediatric overweight and obesity but also with the trajectory of lifestyle habits and the risk of overweight and obesity in early adulthood. The specific aim of this study was to assess how parents’ perception of neighborhood safety is associated with PA in children aged 10–12 years.
Methods: Based on a cross-sectional design, 201 parent-child dyads were enrolled from a random sample of Kaiser Permanente members in two distinct geographic areas in Oakland, California, designed to represent relatively high and low SES based on zip code and census tract information. Parents and children were interviewed by telephone and asked their perception of the neighborhood environment (a modification of the Neighborhood Environment Walkability Survey (NEWS)) including factors related to traffic and crime safety, social capital, and aesthetics, and about frequencies of specific crimes. For each domain, a summary score was created, which was the mean of the score of all items in the domain. Parents reported the number of days/week their child participated in vigorous and moderate PA. Ordered logistic regression was used to model the association between the NEWS/crime frequency variables and parents’ report of children’s vigorous and moderate physical activity. Analyses were stratified by high-income versus low-income zip codes and adjusted for child’s gender, parental SES variables and race/ethnicity. For each model, we obtained the odds ratio, 95% confidence interval, P-value, and q-value to adjust for repeated testing in each domain.
Results: In the adjusted model, items from the NEWS that were significantly associated with parents’ report of children’s vigorous PA included safety of parks at night and the presence of crosswalks and pedestrian signals. The crime frequency summary score and frequency of some specific crimes (i.e., murder, being beaten up, teens carrying guns) were also associated with children’s vigorous PA.
Conclusions: The results of this study indicate the importance of considering parents’ concern for children’s safety in the design of programs, interventions, health messages and counseling that aim to promote children’s physical activity.
- Received September 11, 2008.
