Time spent sitting is influenced by neighbourhood crime : longitudinal evidence from 51,222 Australians

Background: Sitting is an important risk factor for cardiovascular health, cardiovascular disease incidence, and mortality from all-causes and cardiometabolic diseases. While work has focused on breaking up prolonged bouts of sitting, considering upstream structural constraints, such as the social and built environments of where people live, has received less attention. One aspect of social and built environment that intuitively might impact on physical recreation and physical activity is high neighbourhood crime rates. This study examined the association between a change in objectively-measured crime on a measure of sitting time. Methods: Baseline data were extracted from The 45 and Up Study (2006–2008), a large-scale cohort study of health and social phenomena across New South Wales, Australia. Follow-up data from the same participants in 2009–2010 were obtained from the Social Economic and Environmental Factors Study. A total of 51,222 (24,053 men, 27,169 women) with valid outcome data, complete sitting time data, and who did not change their neighbourhood of residence during the study period were included. Sitting time was measured with the question “about how many hours in each 24-hour day do you usually spend sitting?”. Annual crime rate per 1000 population for each Statistical Local Area (32,000 residents on average) of residence was obtained from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. An overall indicator of outdoor crime (tertiles of low, moderate, and high) was constructed by aggregating each of the counts for non-domestic violence; malicious damage; break and enter; and stealing, theft and robbery. Unobserved bias and multilevel regression models were used to examine association between a change in crime on sitting time, adjusting for potential confounders (age, couple status, income, economic status, physical functioning). Results: An increase in local crime rate was consistently associated with an increase in mean sitting time regardless of gender. The impact was particularly high for an increase in malicious damage from tertile 1 (low) to tertile 3 (high) for men (β = 0.63, 95%CI 0.50, 0.77) and women (β = 0.49, 95%CI 0.38, 0.61). The odds ratio of daily sitting time of ≥11 h was OR = 2.69 (95%CI 1.97, 3.67) for men and OR = 1.79 (95%CI 1.27, 2.53) for women experiencing a low to high increase in malicious damage. Smaller effects were found for other crime types. Discussion: Increase in the local crime rate has an impact on amount of sitting time. Investments in crime prevention, especially those influencing outdoor and built environment, may have co-benefits for health.