Abstract
AIMS: To examine the concurrent validity of the Chinese version of Physical Activity Neighborhood Environment Scale (PANES-CHN) among urban adults in regional China. METHODS: With multistage sampling approaches, 801 eligible urban adults aged 35-74 years were recruited from Nanjing municipality of China between July and September of 2019. The neighbourhood built environment features were measured subjectively with PANES-CHN and objectively with geographic information system. The concurrent validity of PANES was assessed using Spearman's correlations (r(s)). RESULTS: Among the total 801 participants, the mean age was 54.4 (standard deviation = 11.5), while 48.7 % were men. Overall, of all the five objectively-measurable built environment characteristics, the Spearman correlations were examined significant between subjective and objective measurements for commercial facilities (item 2) (r(s) = 0.19, 95CI%=0.12, 0.25), recreational facilities (item 6) (r(s) = 0.10, 95CI%=0.02, 0.16), traffic junctions (item 12) (r(s) = 0.15, 95CI%=0.07, 0.22), medical/education facilities (item 17) (r(s) = 0.22, 95CI%=0.15, 0.29), but not for public transport stops. Similar scenarios were observed for participants aged 35-60 years, with sufficient physical activity, men or women. The r(s) value for medical/education facilities (item 17) was significantly higher in participants aged 35-59 years (0.28 vs. 0.13; p = 0.04) than those aged 60 + years. CONCLUSIONS: PANES-CHN generally has an acceptable validity for assessing built environment characteristics among urban adults in China, which implies that PANES-CHN can be used to measure built environment attributes in health-related population studies.