More crime, more sitting? : longitudinal evidence from 51,222 Australians

Background: Changes in neighbourhood crime may discourage physical activity and, consequently, increase the propensity for sedentary lifestyles. Previous research, however, has tended to rely on cross-sectional data and perceptions of crime, rather than longitudinal studies of reported crime rates. Furthermore, different types of crime may have different impacts on the propensity for sedentary behaviour. Accordingly, we examined whether changes in sitting time were associated with a change in multiple indicators of neighbourhood crime around participants aged 45 years and older who remained in the same neighbourhood between 2006 and 2010. Methods: Fixed effects linear regression was used to assess the degree of association between self-reported sitting time and five tertile-based measures of neighbourhood crime sourced from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research: non-domestic violence; malicious damage; break and enter; stealing, theft and robbery; and an aggregated 'total crime' indicator. Gender-stratified analyses were fitted for 24,053 men and 27,169 women, adjusting for time-variant confounders that are known to determine household relocation and participation in sedentary lifestyles (age, income, economic status, couple status, and physical health). Results: Fully adjusted models indicated an increase in sitting time was associated with an increase in neighbourhood crime for men and women. An increase in non-domestic violence from tertile 1 (low) to tertile 3 (high) coincided withβ=0.41 (95% confidence interval (95%CI) 0.23, 0.59) in sitting time among men and β=0.23 (95%CI 0.08, 0.39) among women. Larger effect sizes were observed for a tertile 1-to-3 increase in malicious damage for men (β =0.62 95%CI 0.49, 0.76) and women (β =0.49 95%CI 0.38, 0.61). Conclusion: Overall, the results indicate that investments in crime prevention are also potential investments in healthy liveable communities. Increasing levels of neighbourhood crime, particularly types which influence the local built environment, may discourage active lifestyles and increase sedentary behaviour. Future research might consider exploring how different types of local crime prevention initiatives influence active lifestyles, while other work is needed to investigate whether similar patterns are observed among adults under 45 years of age