Study on the associations of physical activity types and cardiovascular diseases among Chinese population using latent class analysis method

Previous studies reported on the association between physical activity (PA) and cardiovascular diseases (CVD(S)) among the Western population. However, evidence on the association between different patterns of PA and the risk of CVD(S) among Chinese population are limited. This study aims to evaluate the association of different PA types and the risk of CVD(S) in a Chinese adult population. A total of 3568 community residents were recruited from Jiangsu Province of China using a stratified multistage cluster sampling method. The latent class analysis method was employed to identify the types of PA, and the Framingham risk score (FRS) was used to estimate the risk of CVD(S) within 10 years. Three types of PA were identified: CLASS1 represented participants with high occupational PA and low sedentary PA (32.1% of male, 26.5% of female), ClASS2 represented those engaging in low occupational PA and high leisure-time PA (27.0% of male, 14.2% of female), and CLASS3 represented low leisure-time and high sedentary PA (40.9% of male, 59.3% of female). The average of FRS in males was higher than that in females across PA types. CLASS1 (OR = 0.694, 95%CI 0.553–0.869) and CLASS2 (OR = 0.748, 95%CI 0.573–0.976) were both found to be protective against CVD(S) in males; however, such associations were not statistically significant among females. Therefore, higher occupational or leisure-time PA appear to be associated with decreased risk of CVD(S), while more sedentary behaviors may increase the risk of CVD(S), particularly for male Chinese adults.