• John D Prochaska, Robert N Buschmann, Daniel Jupiter, Miriam Mutambudzi, and M Kristen Peek.
• Department of Preventive Medicine & Community Health, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX, USA; Institute for Translational Sciences, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX, USA; Center in Environmental Toxicology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX, USA. Electronic address: joprocha@utmb.edu.
• Prev Med. 2018 Jun 1; 111: 336-341.

AbstractResearch suggests a linkage between perceptions of neighborhood quality and the likelihood of engaging in leisure-time physical activity. Often in these studies, intra-neighborhood variance is viewed as something to be controlled for statistically. However, we hypothesized that intra-neighborhood variance in perceptions of neighborhood quality may be contextually relevant. We examined the relationship between intra-neighborhood variance of subjective neighborhood quality and neighborhood-level reported physical inactivity across 48 neighborhoods within a medium-sized city, Texas City, Texas using survey data from 2706 residents collected between 2004 and 2006. Neighborhoods where the aggregated perception of neighborhood quality was poor also had a larger proportion of residents reporting being physically inactive. However, higher degrees of disagreement among residents within neighborhoods about their neighborhood quality was significantly associated with a lower proportion of residents reporting being physically inactive (p=0.001). Our results suggest that intra-neighborhood variability may be contextually relevant in studies seeking to better understand the relationship between neighborhood quality and behaviors sensitive to neighborhood environments, like physical activity.Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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