County-level associations between passively collected walking and bicycling and self-reported nonoccupational physical activity data

Passively collected location-based services data on walking and bicycling trips could potentially complement traditional public health surveillance systems as related but distinct sources for physical activity data. Starting with a sample of 298 counties, we explored county-level associations between 2019 StreetLight location-based services measures and 2017 and 2019 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System self-reported nonoccupational physical activity measures using Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients (rho), following Cohen’s interpretation (low: < 0.3; moderate: 0.3 to <0.5; strong: ≥ 0.5). Then, we explored stratified associations for the two strongest correlated StreetLight–Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System pairs of measures to understand how these associations differed by county characteristics. Of 72 StreetLight–Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System measure combinations, 4 pairs were moderately correlated (rho 0.3 to <0.5). The remaining pairs had low correlations (rho < 0.3). Select stratified measure pairs had strong correlations (rho ≥ 0.5) for medium and small metro counties and counties in the middle tertile of social vulnerability. Location-based services measures and Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System physical activity measures mostly showed limited convergent validity. The usefulness of location-based services data for representing nonoccupational physical activity may be context-sensitive to certain types of counties, where the constructs may have more in common.