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The Role of the Perceived Neighborhood Social Environment on Adolescent Sedentary Behavior and Physical Activity: Findings from Add Health

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Abstract

Few studies have examined the role of perceived neighborhood characteristics such as neighborhood safety, social cohesion, and contentedness on sedentary behavior (SB) and physical activity (PA) among adolescents. Furthermore, no studies have investigated how these associations are moderated by gender and race. This study aimed to examine the associations of the perceived neighborhood social environment with (SB) and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Data from 6504 adolescents (aged 15.4 ± 0.03 years) who participated in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health was used. SB and PA were considered continuously and dichotomously. PNSE variables include safety, social cohesion, and contentedness, where higher values of PNSE indicate a more favorable neighborhood perception. Weighted linear and logistic regression models were used to examine the association of PNSE with continuous total SB (hours/week) and MVPA (bouts/week), and binary excessive SB (14 h/week) and meeting MVPA guidelines (≥ 5 bouts/week), respectively. Associations were stratified by gender and race to test moderation effects. Models were adjusted for demographic, health, parental, and neighborhood covariates. This study found that neighborhood safety and contentedness were negatively associated with SB, whereas neighborhood social cohesion and contentedness were positively associated with PA. Gender-specific and race-specific results remained somewhat consistent with overall findings; however, neighborhood safety was not associated with SB among female and non-White adolescents, respectively. Similarly, neighborhood safety and contentedness were not associated with MVPA for non-White adolescents. Findings suggest that an adolescent’s neighborhood environment, gender, and race should be considered when implementing strategies to reduce SB and increase PA.

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Funding

The Socio-Spatial Determinants of Health (SSDH) Laboratory is supported by the Division of Intramural Research of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) of the National Institute of Health (NIH), and the NIH Distinguished Scholars Program. Breanna Rogers and Sophie Alphonso are supported by the NIH Postbaccalaureate Intramural Research Training Award. Sam Neally is supported by the Biostatistics for Research in Environmental Health Training Grant (T32ES007018). Yangyang Deng and Mohammad Moniruzzaman are supported by the NIH Postdoctoral Intramural Research Training Award. The views of this study are those of the authors listed and do not necessarily represent the views of the NHLBI, NIMHD, NIH, or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

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Author notes

  1. Breanna J. Rogers and Sophie R. Alphonso are co-first authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Socio-Spatial Determinants of Health (SSDH) Laboratory, Population and Community Health Sciences Branch, Division of Intramural Research, National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, National Institutes of Health, Building 3 Rm 5W21, 3 Center Dr, Bethesda, MD, 20892, USA

    Breanna J. Rogers, Sophie R. Alphonso, Yangyang Deng, Mohammad Moniruzzaman & Kosuke Tamura

  2. Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina Gillings School of Public Health, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Sam J. Neally

Authors
  1. Breanna J. Rogers
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  2. Sophie R. Alphonso
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  3. Sam J. Neally
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  4. Yangyang Deng
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  5. Mohammad Moniruzzaman
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  6. Kosuke Tamura
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Contributions

BR: Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal Analysis, Writing - Original Draft, Writing - Review & Editing. SA: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Formal Analysis, Writing - Original Draft. SN: Software, Validation, Writing – Review & Editing. YD: Software, Validation, and Writing – Review & Editing. MM: Software, Validation, and Writing – Review & Editing. KT: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal Analysis, Writing – Review & Editing, and Supervision.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kosuke Tamura.

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Ethical Declaration

Add Health received ethical approval for all aspects of the study protocol from the institutional review board (IRB) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The National Institute of Health IRB did not deem our analysis as human subjects research as it is a secondary analysis of pre-existing and public data.

Competing Interests

The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interest to disclose.

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Rogers, B.J., Alphonso, S.R., Neally, S.J. et al. The Role of the Perceived Neighborhood Social Environment on Adolescent Sedentary Behavior and Physical Activity: Findings from Add Health. J Community Health (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10900-024-01332-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10900-024-01332-x

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