Bauman Adrian E, Sallis James F, Dzewaltowski David A, Owen Neville
School of Community Medicine and Public Health, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
Am J Prev Med. 2002 Aug;23(2 Suppl):5-14. doi: 10.1016/s0749-3797(02)00469-5.
For research on physical activity interventions to progress systematically, the mechanisms of action must be studied. In doing so, the research methods and their associated concepts and terminology become more complex. It is particularly important to clearly distinguish among determinants, correlates, mediators, moderators, and confounder variables used in physical activity research. This article examines the factors that are correlated with and that may have a causal relationship to physical activity.
We propose that the term "correlate" be used, instead of "determinant," to describe statistical associations or correlations between measured variables and physical activity. Studies of the correlates of physical activity are reviewed. The findings of these studies can help to critique existing theories of health behavior change and can provide hypotheses to be tested in intervention studies from which it is possible to draw causal inferences. Mediator, moderator, and confounder variables can act to influence measured changes in physical activity. Intervening causal variables that are necessary to complete a cause-effect pathway between an intervention and physical activity are termed "mediators." The relationship between an intervention and physical activity behaviors may vary for different groups; the strata by which they vary are levels of "moderators" of the relationship. Other factors may distort or affect the observed relationships between program exposure and physical activity, and are known as "confounders."
Consistent use of terms and additional research on mediators and moderators of intervention effects will improve our ability to understand and influence physical activity.
为使体育活动干预研究能够系统地推进，必须对其作用机制进行研究。在此过程中，研究方法及其相关概念和术语会变得更加复杂。在体育活动研究中，明确区分决定因素、相关因素、中介变量、调节变量和混杂变量尤为重要。本文探讨了与体育活动相关以及可能存在因果关系的因素。
我们建议使用“相关因素”一词而非“决定因素”来描述测量变量与体育活动之间的统计关联或相关性。本文回顾了体育活动相关因素的研究。这些研究结果有助于评判现有的健康行为改变理论，并可为干预研究提供待检验的假设，从中有可能得出因果推论。中介变量、调节变量和混杂变量可影响体育活动测量结果的变化。在干预与体育活动之间的因果路径中，完成该路径所需的干预性因果变量称为“中介变量”。干预与体育活动行为之间的关系可能因不同群体而异；使其产生差异的层次就是该关系的“调节变量”水平。其他因素可能会扭曲或影响观察到的项目暴露与体育活动之间的关系，这些因素被称为“混杂变量”。
对术语的一致使用以及对干预效果的中介变量和调节变量进行更多研究，将提高我们理解和影响体育活动的能力。
