Reliability of information on physical activity and other chronic disease risk factors among US women aged 40 years or older

Data on chronic disease risk behaviors and related variables, including bar riers to and attitudes toward physical activity, are lacking for women of s ome racial/ethnic groups. A test-retest study was conducted from July 1996 through June 1997 among US women (n = 199) aged 40 years or more who were w hite, black, American Indian/Alaska Native, or Hispanic. The sample was sel ected and interviews were conducted using a modified version of the methods of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. For behavioral risk fac tors such as physical inactivity, smoking, and low fruit and vegetable cons umption, group prevalences were generally similar between interviews 1 and 2, However, kappa values for selected physical activity variables ranged fr om 0.26 to 0.51 and tended to be lower for black women, Discordance was low for variables on cigarette smoking and exposure to environmental tobacco s moke (kappa = 0.64-0.92). Discordance was high (kappa = 0.33) for low consu mption of fruits and vegetables. Additional variables for barriers to and a ccess to exercise ranged widely across racial/ethnic groups and in terms of measures of agreement. These methods illustrate an efficient way to sample and assess the reliability of data collected from women of racial/ethnic m inority groups.