Abstract
Coronary heart disease is the leading cause of death in Nova Scotia mostly due to a lack of exercise. To date, little attention has been devoted to determining whether one's immediate living environment may influence physical activity. Thus, we explored the possibility of a relationship between the living environment and physical activity in a sample of people attending cardiac rehabilitation (CR). Eighty-two participants (mean age=63 years) were provided with a portable accelerometer and instructed to wear it around their waist for nine days at the start of their CR program. These devices provided continuous recordings of movement from which we computed total time spent in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) (M=211 minutes). This was compared to self-reported neighborhood characteristics obtained via questionnaires. A series of multiple regression tests that included age, gender and BMI as covariates indicated the following: 10% of the variance in MVPA was explained by the presence of green space {F(4,77)=3.246, p<.05, b=.122), while 9.2% was explained by the presence of attractive buildings {F(4,77)=3.064, p<.05, b=.09) and 8.5% was explained by crime rates in the neighborhood {F(4,77)=2.878, p<.05, b=-.02). This study provides much needed information on how activity levels in heart disease patients may be affected by certain ecological factors.
