Katrina D. DuBose, PhD, FACSMKatrina D. DuBose, PhD, FACSMMcClendon, Aaliyah Antionette2025-06-122025-05May 2025May 2025http://hdl.handle.net/10342/14097Physical Activity Levels in Pregnant Black and White Women Who are Participating in An Exercise Intervention ABSTRACT Purpose: The primary purpose of this study is to investigate whether there are differences in physical activity levels between White and Black women during early and late pregnancy. A second purpose is to explore the attrition rates of White and Black women who participated in an exercise intervention during pregnancy. Methods: Healthy pregnant women between 18-40 years old, ≤16 weeks' gestation were recruited to participate in a supervise exercise clinical trial. The current study used a portion of data from this larger clinical trial. Participants wore an activity monitor (ActiGraph Link) on their non-dominate wrist for 7 consecutive days to measure physical activity. The women wore the activity monitor when they enrolled in the study (early pregnancy, ≤16 weeks), prior to but before the intervention started and during late pregnancy (36 weeks). The activity monitors were removed during any exercise sessions for the late pregnancy time point. Thus, the data reflects all non-intervention physical activity. Data were analyzed to determine daily minutes per day (min/d) spent in sedentary, light, moderate, and vigorous-intensity physical activity. T-tests were used to compare the time spent per day in different physical activity intensities between races at the early and late pregnancy time points. Attrition for this study was determined for those who dropped out before and during the intervention. More specifically, those who dropped out before the intervention were quantified as anyone whose gestation length was ≤ 16 weeks and who did not start any intervention sessions. The attrition occurring during the intervention was defined as women who no longer regularly attended the intervention sessions (<1 time per week for at least 2 consecutive weeks) during pregnancy. Attrition rates were calculated as frequencies for the pooled sample and then for White and Black women separately. Results: There was physical activity data from 99 pregnant women during early pregnancy (19 Blacks ,80 White). On average, participants were 30.48 ± 4.42 years old, with an overweight BMI of 28.18 ± 6.49 kg/m and wore the Link for 14 hours/day. In early pregnancy, prior to the intervention, the amount of time spent per day in sedentary, light, and moderate-intensity physical activity was similar between White and Black pregnant women (p>.05). Black and White pregnant women spent about 1 hour per day in sedentary behaviors, 9 hours a day in light physical activity, and about 4 hours per day in moderate intensity. In late pregnancy time point, there were 47 pregnant women (6 Blacks and 41 Whites) with physical activity data. On average, participants were 30.87 ± 4.39 years old with an obese BMI of 33.65 ± 10.27 kg/m2 and wore the Link for 13 hours/day. White and Black women spent similar amount of time during the day in sedentary behaviors and light-intensity physical activity (p>.05). The amount of time spent in sedentary behaviors were 5.45 ± 117.78 m/d, 46.04 ± 48.60 m/d and for light intensity physical activity it was 520.74 ± 118.88 m/d and 543.67 ± 101.31 m/d in the White and Black women, respectively. In contrast, during late pregnancy the White women spent more time in moderate-intensity physical activity during the day than the Black women during late pregnancy (White: 287.40± 83.59 min/d, Black: 205.71 ± 59.36 min/d; p=.02). Racial differences for vigorous-intensity physical activity were not examined during early and late pregnancy since only one participant engaged in this type of physical activity. Lastly, the attrition rates of the women participating in the exercise intervention were determined. Of the 99 women, 27% of the participants dropped out of the exercise intervention. When examining attrition rates by race, more Black women (42%) dropped out of the study than White women (23%). Attrition rates were highest between the 17 to 24-week gestation time point (52%), followed by the enrollment time point (33%). The main reason for discontinuing the intervention was time commitments (44%). Discussion: The findings of this study show that the intensity and amount of physical activity are similar between the two racial groups in early pregnancy. In contrast, during late pregnancy the time spent in moderate-intensity physical activity is lower in Black than White women, but it is similar for sedentary and light intensity. Attrition rates also show that overall that almost a third of the women stopped participating in the exercise intervention; however, more Black than White women dropped the study. The most common reason for discontinuing study participation is time commitments. Future research should examine physical activity levels in White and Black women through all trimesters of pregnancy to determine if they remain stable. Moreover, additional research is needed to examine the factors, impacting exercise intervention attrition rates in White and Black women.application/pdfEnglishHealth Sciences, KinesiologyHealth Sciences, Public HealthMaster's Thesis2025-05-22