Environmental Factors Associated with Physical Activity in Rural U.S. Counties

Christiaan G. Abildso, Shay M. Daily, M. Renée Umstattd Meyer, Michael B. Edwards, Lauren Jacobs, Megan McClendon, Cynthia K. Perry and James N. Roemmich
Additional contact information
Christiaan G. Abildso: Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, School of Public Health, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA
Shay M. Daily: WVU Office of Health Affairs, Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26505, USA
M. Renée Umstattd Meyer: Department of Public Health, Robbins College of Health and Human Sciences, Baylor University, Waco, TX 76798, USA
Michael B. Edwards: Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management, College of Natural Resources, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA
Lauren Jacobs: School of Kinesiology and Physical Education, College of Education and Human Development, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469, USA
Megan McClendon: Department of Public Health, Robbins College of Health and Human Sciences, Baylor University, Waco, TX 76798, USA
Cynthia K. Perry: School of Nursing, Oregon Health Science University, Portland, OR 97239, USA
James N. Roemmich: US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Grand Forks, ND 58201, USA

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 14, 1-12

Abstract: Background: Rural U.S. adults’ prevalence of meeting physical activity (PA) guidelines is lower than urban adults, yet rural-urban differences in environmental influences of adults’ PA are largely unknown. The study’s objective was to identify rural-urban variations in environmental factors associated with the prevalence of adults meeting PA guidelines. Methods: County-level data for non-frontier counties ( n = 2697) were used. A five-category rurality variable was created using the percentage of a county’s population living in a rural area. Factor scores from Factor Analyses (FA) were used in subsequent Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) analyses stratified by rurality to identify associations between environmental factor scores and the prevalence of males and females meeting PA guidelines. Results: FA revealed a 13-variable, four-factor structure of natural, social, recreation, and transportation environments. MLR revealed that natural, social, and recreation environments were associated with PA for males and females, with variation by sex for social environment. The natural environment was associated with PA in all but urban counties; the recreation environment was associated with PA in the urban counties and the two most rural counties. Conclusions: Variations across the rural-urban continuum in environmental factors associated with adults’ PA, highlight the uniqueness of rural PA and the need to further study what succeeds in creating active rural places.

Keywords: rural health; physical activity; positive deviance; social-ecological (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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