Living in passive communities increased cardiovascular mortality rates

American and Egyptian researchers have found that communities where adults neglect physical activity in their free time have significantly increased cardiovascular mortality rates. A publication about this appeared in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Shady Abohashem of Harvard Medical School and colleagues from the United States and Egypt analyzed data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for 2,900 U.S. counties from 2011 to 2019. County-specific levels of physical activity and cardiovascular mortality and the influence of comorbidities were calculated using multilevel regression models; correlations between them were calculated using Poisson generalized linear mixed models.

Of the 309.9 million people living in 2,900 counties in 2011, 7.38 million (2.4 percent) had died of cardiovascular disease by 2019. Calculations showed that socioeconomic, environmental, and clinical factors specific to individual counties accounted for 65 percent (adjusted R2 = 0.65) of the variation among them in leisure-time physical activity levels. Low levels of such activity were found to be significantly associated with increased cardiovascular mortality in all demographic groups. This association was best seen among middle-aged people in general - the standardized mortality ratio (IRR) was 1.06; 95% confidence interval 1.04-1.07 - and the female sex in particular (IRR 1.09; 95% confidence interval 1.07-1.12). According to the authors of the paper, this indicates the need for targeted interventions to increase physical activity in high-risk communities.