Examining Social Ecological Determinants of RPA Among Chinese Elderly

Background/Purpose: Social ecological model (SEM) of health promotion have increasingly been adopted to better understand the relations among the individual factors(IF), social environment (SE), physical environment (PE) and regular physical activity (RPA) in the U.S., but little is known regarding the application of SEM in predicting RPA among elderly in China. The purpose of this study is to validate the questionnaires assessing social-ecological determinants (IF, SE, and PE) and examine the relationships of the determinants and RPA among Chinese elderly.

Method: A preliminary questionnaire with 150 items based on SEM was formulated through literature review, field observations, interviews, the Delphi technique, and a pilot study. The final validated questionnaire comprised of 120-items via exploratory factor analysis and reliability tests. A total of 1863 elderly (male = 36.7%, female =63.3%; M age = 64.11±9.77 years) responded to the questionnaire assessing their RPA, IF (health knowledge, health behavior, sport skills, current physical ability/disability, and psychological factors), SE (social support, social security, organizational participation, social relationship, and social activity), and PE (facilities). Structural equation modeling was utilized to test relations among the determinants and PA via LISREL.

Analysis/Results: The structure model showed a good fit to the data with chi square ( x²  =2132.92, p< .05). The fit indices met the acceptable criteria: RMSEA = .43, NNFI = .94, CFI= .95, SRMR= 0.05). Results indicated that RPA were positively associated with sport skills (ß= 0.492, t = 10.71), current physical ability/disability (ß= 0.291, t = 5.14) , psychological factors (ß=0.108, t = 2.54), social support (ß= 0.279, t = 6.74), social relationship (ß= 0.135, t = 2.57), social activity(ß = 0.137, t =3.42), facilities  (ß = 0.382, t = 6.52). Health knowledge, health behavior, organizational participation had not significant effects on RPA. Among them, facilities and sport skills had stronger predictive strength on RPA for Chinese elderly.

Conclusions: The findings revealed that facilities, sport skills and social support emerged as major determinants of RPA. Psychological factors also played a mediating role in the model. Health knowledge and organizational participation were not significant associated with RPA. Future studies will assess IF, SE, and PE as interactive contributors to physical activity behavior and to better understand the pathways through which they influence RPA for Chinese elderly.