Socio-demographic patterning of physical activity across migrant groups in India: results from the Indian Migration Study.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the relationship between rural to urban migration and physical activity (PA) in India.


METHODS
6,447 (42% women) participants comprising 2077 rural, 2,094 migrants and 2,276 urban were recruited. Total activity (MET hr/day), activity intensity (min/day), PA Level (PAL) television viewing and sleeping (min/day) were estimated and associations with migrant status examined, adjusting for the sib-pair design, age, site, occupation, education, and socio-economic position (SEP).


RESULTS
Total activity was highest in rural men whereas migrant and urban men had broadly similar activity levels (p<0.001). Women showed similar patterns, but slightly lower levels of total activity. Sedentary behaviour and television viewing were lower in rural residents and similar in migrant and urban groups. Sleep duration was highest in the rural group and lowest in urban non-migrants. Migrant men had considerably lower odds of being in the highest quartile of total activity than rural men, a finding that persisted after adjustment for age, SEP and education (OR 0.53, 95% CI 0.37, 0.74). For women, odds ratios attenuated and associations were removed after adjusting for age, SEP and education.


CONCLUSIONS
Our findings suggest that migrants have already acquired PA levels that closely resemble long-term urban residents. Effective public health interventions to increase PA are needed.
Department of Non-communicable Disease Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom. ruth.sullivan@lshtm.ac.uk
Ruth
R
Sullivan
Sanjay
S
Kinra
Ulf
U
Ekelund
A V
AV
Bharathi
Mario
M
Vaz
Anura
A
Kurpad
Tim
T
Collier
Kolli Srinath
KS
Reddy
Dorairaj
D
Prabhakaran
Yoav
Y
Ben-Shlomo
George
G
Davey Smith
Shah
S
Ebrahim
Hannah
H
Kuper
D000328:Adult; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D003710:Demography; D004641:Emigration and Immigration / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007194:India / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology*; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D016017:Odds Ratio; D012424:Rural Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014505:Urban Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data