U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion

Increase the proportion of adults who do enough aerobic physical activity for substantial health benefits — PA‑02 Data Methodology and Measurement

On this page:  About the National Data  |  Methodology  |  History

About the National Data

Data

Data Source:  National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), CDC/NCHS

Baseline: 47.9 percent of adults aged 18 years and over engaged in leisure time aerobic physical activity of at least moderate intensity for at least 150 minutes/week, or at least 75 minutes/week of vigorous intensity, or an equivalent combination in 2020

Target: 52.9 percent

Numerator
Number of adults aged 18 years and over who report moderate physical activity for at least 150 minutes per week or who report vigorous physical activity 75 minutes per week or an equivalent combination of moderate and vigorous-intensity activity per week during leisure time.
Denominator
Number of adults aged 18 years and over.
Target-setting method
Percentage point improvement
Target-setting method details
Percentage point improvement from the baseline using Cohen's h effect size of 0.10.
1
Target-setting method justification
Trend data were evaluated for this objective, but it was not possible to project a target because the trend was not expected to continue. A percentage point improvement was calculated using Cohen's h effect size of 0.1. This method was used because it was a statistically significant improvement from the baseline and the Healthy People 2030 Workgroup Subject Matter Experts expected the data to move in the desired direction during the next decade.

Methodology

Methodology notes
Adults are classified as meeting the objective if they participate in at least 150 minutes of moderate activity per week, 75 minutes of vigorous activity, or 150 minutes per week of an equivalent combination of activity during leisure time.
Total minutes per week of moderate-intensity activity are calculated by multiplying the times per week adults report participating in moderate-intensity activity by the number of minutes reported. Total minutes per week of vigorous-intensity activity are calculated by multiplying the times per week adults report participating in vigorous-intensity activity by the number of minutes reported. To calculate minutes per week for the equivalent combination of moderate and vigorous-intensity activity, minutes per week of moderate-intensity activity are added to two times the minutes per week of vigorous-intensity activity.
 If responses meet the criteria for one activity (vigorous or moderate) but the status of the other activity is unknown, the record is included in the numerator and the denominator. If responses do not meet the criteria for one activity and the status of the other activity is unknown, the record is dropped from the analysis.
 Note: Beginning with the NHIS re-design "LIGHT” was  dropped from the question, "How often do you do LIGHT OR MODERATE LEISURE-TIME physical activities…", in the rotating core starting in 2020 to be more consistent with the aerobic component of the physical activity guidelines.

History

Comparable HP2020 objective
Modified, which includes core objectives that are continuing from HP2020 but underwent a change in measurement.
Changes between HP2020 and HP2030
This objective differs from Healthy People 2020 objective PA-2.1 in that objective PA-02 was changed to reflect 2018 Physical Activity guidelines and due to 2019 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) redesign. The 10-minute physical activity requirement and light intensity physical activity were dropped from the NHIS questionnaire.
Revision History
Revised. 

In 2022, this objective was revised due to the 2019 NHIS redesign and 2020 survey question changes. The baseline questions changed from, "How often do you do VIGOROUS leisure-time physical activities for AT LEAST 10 MINUTES that cause HEAVY sweating or LARGE increases in breathing or heart rate?" and "How often do you do LIGHT OR MODERATE LEISURE-TIME physical activities for AT LEAST 10 MINUTES that cause ONLY LIGHT sweating or a SLIGHT to MODERATE increase in breathing or heart rate?" to "How often do you do MODERATE-INTENSITY LEISURE-TIME physical activities?" and "How often do you do VIGOROUS-INTENSITY LEISURE-TIME physical activities?"
The baseline was revised from 54.2% in 2018 to 47.9% in 2020. The target was revised from 59.2% to 52.9% using the original target setting method.

1. Effect size h=0.1 was chosen to correspond with 10% improvement from a baseline of 50%.