Citation

Balish SM, Rainham D, Blanchard C. Scand. J. Med. Sci. Sports 2014; 25(6): e576-81.

Affiliation

IDPhD Program, SILK Lab, Life Science Centre, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/sms.12375

PMID

25487738

Abstract

The objective of this study was to examine, across 22 countries, the association between community size and individual sport, team sport, and exercise participation. Hierarchal non-linear Bernoulli modeling is used to examine the association between community size (100 000-10 000; <10 000) and (a) individual sport, (b) team sport, and (c) exercise participation. After controlling for country-level clustering and demographic variables, those residing a community with between 100 000 and 10 000 residents are more likely to participate in individual sport [odds ratio (OR) = 1.14; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.05-1.23] while residing in a community with less than 10 000 residents is unrelated (OR = 1.06; 95% CI = 0.96-1.19). Those residing in communities with between 100 000 and 10 000 residents were more likely to participate in team sport (OR = 1.21; 95% CI = 1.01-1.45) while residing in a community with less than 10 000 residents is unrelated (OR = 1.02; 95% CI = 0.88-1.18). Residing in a community with between 100 000 and 10 000 residents is unrelated to exercise participation (OR = 0.97; 95% CI = 0.89-1.7), while residing in a community with less than 10 000 residents is negatively related to exercise participation (OR = 0.86; 95% CI = 0.79-0.93). These findings provide novel evidence that communities between 100 000 and 10 000 residents are related to increased sport participation, particularly team sport participation.

Language: en