Correlation of a self-report and direct measure of physical activity level in the electron-beam tomography and risk assessment among Japanese and US Men in the post World War II birth cohort (ERA JUMP) study.
BACKGROUND
Physical activity (PA) is complex and a difficult behavior to assess as there is no ideal assessment tool(s) that can capture all contexts of PA. Therefore, it is important to understand how different assessment tools rank individuals. We examined the extent to which self-report and direct assessment PA tools yielded the same ranking of PA levels.


METHODS
PA levels were measured by the Modifiable Activity Questionnaire (MAQ) and pedometer at baseline among 855 white (W), African-American (AA), Japanese-American (JA), and Korean (K) men (mean age 45.3 years) in 3 geographic locations in the ERA JUMP study.


RESULTS
Korean men were more active than W, AA, and JA men, according to both the MAQ and pedometer (MAQ total PA [mean ± SD]: 41.6 ± 17.8, 20.9 ± 9.9, 20.0 ± 9.1, and 29.4 ± 10.3 metabolic equivalent [MET] hours/week, respectively; pedometer: 9584.4 ± 449.4, 8363.8 ± 368.6, 8930.3 ± 285.6, 8335.7 ± 368.6 steps/day, respectively). Higher levels of total PA in Korean men, as shown by MAQ, were due to higher occupational PA. Spearman correlations between PA levels reported on the MAQ and pedometer indicated positive associations ranging from rho = 0.29 to 0.42 for total activity, rho = 0.13 to 0.35 for leisure activity, and rho = 0.10 to 0.26 for occupational activity.


CONCLUSIONS
The 2 assessment methods correlated and were complementary rather than interchangeable. The MAQ revealed why Korean men were more active. In some subpopulations it may be necessary to assess PA domains other than leisure and to use more than 1 assessment tool to obtain a more representative picture of PA levels.
Department of Epidemiology, University of Pittsburgh, Graduate School of Public Health.
Marie A
MA
Berger
Chol
C
Shin
Kristi L
KL
Storti
J David
JD
Curb
Andrea M
AM
Kriska
Vincent C
VC
Arena
Jina
J
Choo
Hirotsuga
H
Ueshima
Tomonori
T
Okamura
Katsuyuki
K
Miura
Todd B
TB
Seto
Kamal
K
Masaki
Aiman
A
El-Saed
Akira
A
Sekikawa
D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D001213:Asian / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D044466:Asian People / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018670:Monitoring, Ambulatory / Q000295:instrumentation*; D009043:Motor Activity; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D018570:Risk Assessment; D057566:Self Report; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed; D044465:White People / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*