Physical Activity Among Kids: The Intersection Between Autism Spectrum Disorder And Hispanic Background

It has been investigated how different levels of physical activity can affect children's health. Extensive studies on the physical activity levels in children from different ethnicities have been conducted, where Hispanic children were less likely to engage in physical activity. However, there is a lack of studies that have compared how different neurodevelopmental conditions, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children with different ethnicities, can affect their physical activity engagement. PURPOSE: To investigate the level of PA engagement between Hispanic and non-Hispanic children with and without ASD. METHODS: This secondary data analysis utilized the 2016-2023 US National Survey of Children's Health data. Participants' parents/guardians self-reported their ethnicity and ASD diagnosis. Additionally, participants’ physical activity levels were reported in the frequency of days engaged in physical activity, zero days, one to three days, four to six days and seven days. Ordinal logistic regression was performed with the frequency of physical activity regressed into ASD diagnosis, Hispanic status and the interaction term between ASD diagnosis and Hispanic status. RESULTS: A total of 208,792 participants were included in the analysis. Among the total population, 96.8% (95%CI [0.96, 0.97]) reported not having ASD. Only 3.1% (95%CI [0.02, 0.03]) of participants reported having ASD. The ordinal logistic regression found that children with ASD (OR = 0.49, 95% [0.45, 0.54]) and Hispanic children (OR = 0.70, 95%[0.66, 0.73]) were statistically significantly less likely to have higher frequency of physical activity per week than their counterpart, without ASD and non-Hispanic children. However, the interaction term between ASD and Hispanic children (OR = 1.27, 95%[0.87, 1.84]) revealed that there was not a statistically significant interaction with frequency of physical activity per week. CONCLUSIONS: Hispanic children and those diagnosed with ASD are less likely to engage in PA. Targeted PA promotion is needed for these populations, considering their unique needs.