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Pollution, Health, and the Moderating Role of Physical Activity Opportunities

Air and water pollution have detrimental effects on health, while physical activity opportunities have a positive relationship. The purpose of this study was to explore whether physical activity opportunities moderate the relationships among air and water pollution, and measures of health. Aggregate...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Cunningham, George B., Wicker, Pamela, McCullough, Brian P.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7504488/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32872245
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17176272
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author Cunningham, George B.
Wicker, Pamela
McCullough, Brian P.
author_facet Cunningham, George B.
Wicker, Pamela
McCullough, Brian P.
author_sort Cunningham, George B.
collection PubMed
description Air and water pollution have detrimental effects on health, while physical activity opportunities have a positive relationship. The purpose of this study was to explore whether physical activity opportunities moderate the relationships among air and water pollution, and measures of health. Aggregate data were collected at the county level in the United States (n = 3104). Variables included the mean daily density of fine particle matter (air pollution), reported cases of health-related drinking water violations (water pollution), subjective ratings of poor or fair health (overall health), the number of physically and mentally unhealthy (physical and mental health, respectively), and the percentage of people living in close proximity to a park or recreation facility (access to physical activity). Air and water pollution have a significant positive effect on all measures of residents’ poor health, while physical activity opportunities only have a negative effect on overall health and physical health. Access to physical activity only moderates the relationship between air pollution and all health outcomes. Since physical activity behavior can be more rapidly changed than some causes of pollution, providing the resident population with better access to physical activity can represent an effective tool in environmental health policy.
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spelling pubmed-75044882020-09-24 Pollution, Health, and the Moderating Role of Physical Activity Opportunities Cunningham, George B. Wicker, Pamela McCullough, Brian P. Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Air and water pollution have detrimental effects on health, while physical activity opportunities have a positive relationship. The purpose of this study was to explore whether physical activity opportunities moderate the relationships among air and water pollution, and measures of health. Aggregate data were collected at the county level in the United States (n = 3104). Variables included the mean daily density of fine particle matter (air pollution), reported cases of health-related drinking water violations (water pollution), subjective ratings of poor or fair health (overall health), the number of physically and mentally unhealthy (physical and mental health, respectively), and the percentage of people living in close proximity to a park or recreation facility (access to physical activity). Air and water pollution have a significant positive effect on all measures of residents’ poor health, while physical activity opportunities only have a negative effect on overall health and physical health. Access to physical activity only moderates the relationship between air pollution and all health outcomes. Since physical activity behavior can be more rapidly changed than some causes of pollution, providing the resident population with better access to physical activity can represent an effective tool in environmental health policy. MDPI 2020-08-28 2020-09 /pmc/articles/PMC7504488/ /pubmed/32872245 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17176272 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Cunningham, George B.
Wicker, Pamela
McCullough, Brian P.
Pollution, Health, and the Moderating Role of Physical Activity Opportunities
title Pollution, Health, and the Moderating Role of Physical Activity Opportunities
title_full Pollution, Health, and the Moderating Role of Physical Activity Opportunities
title_fullStr Pollution, Health, and the Moderating Role of Physical Activity Opportunities
title_full_unstemmed Pollution, Health, and the Moderating Role of Physical Activity Opportunities
title_short Pollution, Health, and the Moderating Role of Physical Activity Opportunities
title_sort pollution, health, and the moderating role of physical activity opportunities
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7504488/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32872245
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17176272
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