2014 Articles

The benefits of neighborhood racial diversity: Neighborhood factors and its association with increased physical activity in ACS patients

Denton, Ellen-ge; Green, Philip; Newman, Jonathan; Ye, Siqin; Davidson, Karina W.; Schwartz, Joseph E.

Regular physical activity reduces the risk of adverse events after an acute coronary syndrome (ACS) [1]. Physical activity level is influenced by neighborhood factors such as racial diversity in the general population [2] and [3], but the impact of neighborhood factors on physical activity after an ACS is unknown. We therefore prospectively evaluated the relationship of post-ACS physical activity assessed by continuous activity monitors with neighborhood characteristics, including ethnic density, income, female headed households, and racial diversity, in patients enrolled in the Prescription Use, Lifestyle, and Stress Evaluation (PULSE) Study.

We included 107 patients enrolled in the PULSE study from February 1, 2009 to June 30, who were monitored with an Actical® (Philips Respironics, Inc., Bend, Oregon) accelerometer device during the first 45 days following discharge from their ACS. For this analysis, physical activity level was operationalized as the mean maximum 6 min of activity during the day (M6m), which has previously been employed in studies of patients with chronic heart failure to summarize the patients' peak activity level [4] and [5]. Because the trajectory of physical activity is expected to change after hospital discharge, we calculated the M6m measure at 7, 14, 21, and 28 days post-discharge.