{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,21]],"date-time":"2026-03-21T09:35:58Z","timestamp":1774085758425,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":52,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"14","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,7,13]],"date-time":"2021-07-13T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1626134400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100002322","name":"Coordena\u00e7\u00e3o de Aperfei\u00e7oamento de Pessoal de N\u00edvel Superior","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["Finance Code 001"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["Finance Code 001"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100002322","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["IJERPH"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Background: Large-scale health surveys often consider sociodemographic characteristics and several health indicators influencing physical activity that often vary across subpopulations. Data in a survey for some small subpopulations are often not representative of the larger population. Objective: We developed a multilevel regression and poststratification (MRP) model to estimate leisure-time physical activity across Brazilian state capitals and evaluated whether the MRP outperforms single-level regression estimates based on the Brazilian cross-sectional national survey VIGITEL (2018). Methods: We used various approaches to compare the MRP and single-level model (complete-pooling) estimates, including cross-validation with various subsample proportions tested. Results: MRP consistently had predictions closer to the estimation target than single-level regression estimations. The mean absolute errors were smaller for the MRP estimates than single-level regression estimates with smaller sample sizes. MRP presented substantially smaller uncertainty estimates compared to single-level regression estimates. Overall, the MRP was superior to single-level regression estimates, particularly with smaller sample sizes, yielding smaller errors and more accurate estimates. Conclusion: The MRP is a promising strategy to predict subpopulations\u2019 physical activity indicators from large surveys. The observations present in this study highlight the need for further research, which could, potentially, incorporate more information in the models to better interpret interactions and types of activities across target populations.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/ijerph18147477","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,7,13]],"date-time":"2021-07-13T22:25:31Z","timestamp":1626215131000},"page":"7477","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":4,"title":["Using Multilevel Regression and Poststratification to Estimate Physical Activity Levels from Health Surveys"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"18","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5672-6869","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Marina","family":"Christofoletti","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Physical Education, School of Sports, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florian\u00f3polis 88040-900, SC, Brazil"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2035-5082","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"T\u00e2nia R. B.","family":"Benedetti","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Physical Education, School of Sports, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florian\u00f3polis 88040-900, SC, Brazil"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9552-754X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Felipe G.","family":"Mendes","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Physical Education, School of Sports, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florian\u00f3polis 88040-900, SC, Brazil"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2855-0296","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Humberto M.","family":"Carvalho","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Physical Education, School of Sports, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florian\u00f3polis 88040-900, SC, Brazil"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,7,13]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"149","DOI":"10.1136\/bjsports-2017-097965","article-title":"The physical activity paradox: Six reasons why occupational physical activity (OPA) does not confer the cardiovascular health benefits that leisure time physical activity does","volume":"52","author":"Holtermann","year":"2018","journal-title":"Br. 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