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Abstract
Objectives In response to a call from the American Heart Association to more clearly identify the demographic factors associated with sedentary behaviours, this study aimed to identify the hierarchy of demographic characteristics associated with the sedentary behaviours of television viewing, recreational computer use and driving.
Design Cross-sectional analysis of baseline data collected as part of the UK Biobank. The UK Biobank is a population cohort recruited from 22 centres across the UK. Participants aged between 37 and 73 years were recruited between 2006 and 2010.
Methods Decision tree models were generated for the sedentary behaviour outcomes of hours/day spent television viewing, recreational computer use and all driving; a sum of time spent in these sedentary behaviours (‘overall’) was computed. Age, sex, race, college attendance, employment, shift-work, urban versus rural residence as well as physical activity were considered as predictors.
Results The analytic sample comprised 415 666 adults who were mostly female (54.2%), white (95.2%), non-college attendee (64.5%), employed (61.7%), lived in an urban centre (85.5%), with a mean age of 56.6 (SD=8.1) years. Television viewing was most common sedentary behaviour (2.7 hour/day vs 1.1 for recreational computer use and 1.0 for all driving). Males (tier 1), who did not attend college (tier 2) were the highest risk group for overall sedentary time. Adults with no college attendance (tier 1) and were retired (tier 2) were the most high-risk demographic group for television viewing. College attendees (tier 1) were highest risk for recreational computer use. Adults who were employed (tier 1), male (tier 2) and did not attend college (tier 3) were most at risk for driving
Conclusions Daily time spent in different sedentary behaviours varies by sex, employment status and college attendance status. The development of targeted interventions to reduce sedentary behaviour in different demographic subgroups is needed.
- epidemiology
- preventive medicine
- public health
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Footnotes
Contributors FP conceptualised the study, drafted and reviewed the manuscript. AL conducted the data analysis and drafted sections of the manuscript. LH conducted the data analysis and drafted sections of the manuscript. MP and JB conducted the literature searching and drafted sections of the manuscript. AH designed the data analytic approach, oversaw the data analysis and reviewed the manuscript. All authors approved the final manuscript draft.
Funding FP receives support from an Institutional Development Award (IDeA) Center of Biomedical Research Excellence from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under grant number P20GM113125 and from the University of Delaware Research Foundation grant number 16A01366. FP receives free study medication from Pfizer.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent Not required.
Ethics approval The UK Biobank.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data sharing statement No additional data are available.