Development and Testing of an Integrated Score for Physical Behaviors. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • PURPOSE: Interest in a variety of physical behaviors (e.g., exercise, sitting time, sleep) in relation to health outcomes creates a need for new statistical approaches to analyze the joint effects of these distinct but inter-related physical behaviors. We developed and tested an integrated physical behavior score (PBS). METHODS: National Institutes of Health-American Association of Retired Persons Diet and Health Study participants (N = 163,016) completed a questionnaire (2004-2006) asking about time spent in five exercise and nonexercise physical activities, two sedentary behaviors (television and nontelevision), and sleep. In half of the sample, we used shape-constrained additive regression to model the relationship between each behavior and survival. Maximum logit scores from each of the eight behavior-survival functions were summed to produce a PBS that was proportionally rescaled to range from 0 to 100. We examined predictive validity of the PBS in the other half-sample using Cox Proportional Hazards models after adjustment for covariates for all-cause and cause-specific mortality. RESULTS: In the testing sample, over an average of 6.6 yr of follow-up, 8732 deaths occurred. We found a strong graded decline in risk of all-cause mortality across quintiles of PBS (Q5 vs Q1 hazard ratio [95% CI] = 0.53 [0.49, 0.57]). Risk estimates for the PBS were higher than any of the components in isolation. Results were similar but stronger for cardiovascular disease (Q5 vs Q1 = 0.42 [0.39, 0.48]) and other mortality (Q5 vs Q1 = 0.42 [0.36, 0.48]). The relationship between PBS and mortality was observed in stratified analyses by median age, sex, body mass index, and health status. CONCLUSIONS: We developed a novel statistical method generated a composite physical behavior that is predictive of mortality outcomes. Future research is needed to test this approach in an independent sample.

published proceedings

  • Med Sci Sports Exerc

altmetric score

  • 11.55

author list (cited authors)

  • Keadle, S. K., Kravitz, E. S., Matthews, C. E., Tseng, M., & Carroll, R. J.

citation count

  • 6

complete list of authors

  • Keadle, Sarah Kozey||Kravitz, Eli S||Matthews, Charles E||Tseng, Marilyn||Carroll, Raymond J

publication date

  • August 2019