BMC Public Health 2007, 7:230 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/7/230 Table 2: Associationsa of the indicators of acculturation with physical activity during leisure time Acculturation indicators Cultural orientation towards Dutch culture Low cultural orientation High cultural orientation Social contacts with ethnic Dutch Few social contacts with ethnic Dutch Many social contacts with ethnic Dutch Physical activity during leisure time N = 485 OR (95% CI) 1.00 1.85 (1.19–2.85) 1.00 1.77 (1.15–2.71) a All associations are adjusted for age, sex, education and marital status. who had more social contacts with ethnic Dutch (i.e. highly acculturated), were more physically active during leisure time than persons who were less acculturated. This pattern, however, appeared to exist in particular among people without children, without participation in occupa- tional physical activity and living in an attractive neigh- bourhood environment. Table 3: Associationsa of the acculturation indicators with being physically active during leisure time stratified by the contextual barriers. Presented are the Odds Ratio's (OR) of the higher acculturated groups compared to the lower acculturated groups (reference group). Contextual barriersc Having no children Children No occupational physical activity Occupational physical activity Attractive neighbourhood Less attractive neighbourhood Indicators of acculturation Cultural orientation towards the Dutch cultureb OR (95% CI) Social contacts with ethnic Dutchb OR (95% CI) 2.18 (1.29–3.71) 1.87 (1.11–3.14) 1.28 (0.52–3.13) 1.76 (1.04–2.96) 1.85 (0.79–4.33) 1.83 (1.08–3.10) 2.21 (0.69–7.10) 0.95 (0.32–2.87) 2.17 (1.22–3.85) 1.76 (1.04–2.99) 1.24 (0.59–2.58) 1.22 (0.55–2.73) a All associations are adjusted for age, sex, education and marital status. b The reference groups are respectively the participants with a low cultural orientation towards the Dutch culture and few social contacts with ethnic Dutch. c Figures in bold are the groups without the barrier. ) 5 R ( 4 O y t i itc v 3 a l a ic 2 s y h p 1 e m t i 0 e r u s i e l exercise -supportive context exercise-inhibiting context tcpFAeohisxgynstsuotiecacraxniealtdtua3io≥actln1ivbibatyearrtdwirueirreisrnegn(=nl'eoseioxsbuceariraerclritisciemeor-nesint=sahtcirebtasxiteiwfnriegictdihcseobe-yntshtutenhpxiepcto)pDrrtueivstcehnc'coaeno-df Association between 'social contacts with ethnic Dutch' and physical activity during leisure time stratified by the presence of contextual barriers (no barriers = exercise-supportive con- text and ≥1 barrier = exercise-inhibiting context). White square: Few social contacts with ethnic Dutch (reference group). Black square: Many social contacts with ethnic Dutch. Limitations Before drawing conclusions, some limitations must be mentioned. Firstly, as in many other studies we used cross-sectional data, which implies that no causal rela- tionship between the acculturation indicators and the outcome measure could be demonstrated. For example, the influence of social contacts with ethnic Dutch people on physical activity during leisure time could perhaps be explained by the fact that people who participate in sport have more contacts with ethnic Dutch people. In the cur- rent study however, leisure time activities also included activities that were not organized, such as cycling, walk- ing, running in the park or doing exercises at home, which do not necessarily involve more opportunities for contact with ethnic Dutch people. In addition, the main purpose of this study was to investigate the role of the contextual factors in the association between physical activity and acculturation, therefore the cross-sectional study design will not affect our main conclusions. Secondly, the questionnaire for assessing physical activity during leisure time, was only validated for ethnic Dutch people [42]. To minimize the chance of misinterpretation or difficulties with understanding the questions we tested the questionnaire in a pilot study among young Turkish people and we adjusted the questionnaire to include dancing as a leisure time activity as this is a popular activ- ity among Turkish women in particular. In addition, we used trained Turkish bilingual interviewers to help in cases of difficulties answering the questions. Page 6 of 9 (page number not for citation purposes)