Impact of a 3-year multi-centre community-based intervention on risk factors for chronic disease and obesity among free-living adults: the Healthy Alberta Communities study

Table 1 Self-reported characteristics of participants in intervention communities who completed physical measurements at baseline (2006) and follow-up (2009)

Parameters	Baseline n = 1554	Follow-up n = 1808
	mean ± SEM
Age, years	50.0 ± 0.4	54.0 ± 0.3
Age categories	% (n)
18–39 years	27.9 (433)	18.1 (322)
20–39 years	27.5 (427)	18.1 (321)
40–59 years	42.7 (664)	44.9 (797)
60–79 years	27.2 (422)	33.5 (595)
≥ 80 years	2.3 (35)	3.4 (61)
Sex, female (%)	69.0(1073)	67.6 (1222)
Education, completed College/University	39.9 (619)	38.1 (687)
Employment status
Employed full-time	42.1 (655)	39.8 (720)
Employed part-time	17.7 (275)	16.1 (291)
Homemaker	12.1 (188)	9.4 (170)
Retired	24.5 (380)	30.4 (549)
Student	3.8 (59)	1.8 (33)
Temporarily unemployed	4.5 (70)	5.1 (92)
Volunteer	7.7 (120)	5.2 (94)
Level of combined household income, above cut-off points^a	84.8 (1223)	87.8 (1490)
Perceived health, excellent and very good	54.0 (838)	54.1 (978)
Sense of belonging to local community, strong	73.3 (1121)	77.1 (1380)
Fruit and vegetable intake, ≥ 5 servings/day^b	49.5 (751)	46.9 (824)
Physical activity index, active^c	36.7 (570)	22.4 (405)
High blood pressure	18.0 (279)	21.5 (387)
Use antihypertensive medication	16.8 (261)	19.5 (352)
Smoking status, daily	24.0 (254)	20.4 (246)

Data represent unweighted values
^aLow income cut-offs are defined by Statistics Canada as income thresholds below which families devote a larger share of income to purchasing food, shelter and clothing than average families. Low income cut-offs were calculated for each participant based on family size and community of residence [75]
^bOne serving of fruits and vegetables was defined as a medium fruit or half a cup of fresh, frozen or canned vegetables [76, 77]
^cActive was defined as a total average daily energy expenditure ≥ 3.0 kcal/kg/day [77]