Knowledge, stages of change, and exercise behavior in older Hispanic and Anglo adults

The present study was a secondary analysis of data from a community survey pretest that was part of a longitudinal study. The purpose of the present research was to examine the relationships among the demographic characteristics of Hispanic and Anglo rural elderly, their knowledge about health issues, and the frequency of their current sustained exercise activity. The stages of change construct of the transtheoretical model was used as the theoretical framework to identify levels of exercise activity. The subjects (n = 846) were divided into three ethnodemographic groups, called New Anglos, Old Anglos, and Hispanics, based on their ethnicity and length of residency in a rural community. Descriptive, correlational, and inferential statistics, specifically analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Pearson correlation, were used to analyze the data. Significant differences existed among all three groups in their knowledge of health issues. There were significant differences between the New Anglos and both the Old Anglos and the Hispanics in their frequency of exercise performance. No relationship was found between health knowledge and frequency of exercise performance for either the New Anglos or the Old Anglos. A low, but significant correlation was found between these two variables for the Hispanics.Digitized from a paper copy provided by the Arizona Health Sciences Library