Physical Activity and Its Relationship With Diabetes, Hypertension, and Social Demographic Factors in Rural and Urban Malawi

Background Physical activity (PA) is an essential component of a healthy lifestyle and is a significant contributor to global health by lowering the risk of morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and other Non-Communicable Diseases. Despite this, PA research has rarely been the focus of public health activities in Malawi. Objective The study aimed to evaluate and compare PA Patterns of urban and rural Malawians and their relationship with hypertension, diabetes, and demographic and behavioral factors. Methods This was a cross-sectional study that utilized the secondary research approach. The review analyzed data collected from Karonga and Lilongwe using questionnaires administered from May 2013 to April 2017. The data was entered in the SPSS version 27. Next, the Chi-square test was used for univariate analysis. Furthermore, a binary logistic regression model was used to assess the risk factors. The value of p < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results The study involved 30575 participants, with 16672 from urban areas and 13903 from rural sites, and 1168 (38.2%) males and 18907 (61.8%) females. Many study participants (97.7%) met WHO criteria for physical activity, with 13610 (97.9%) in rural areas and 16254 (97.5%) in urban areas meeting WHO recommendations. Age, gender, occupation, diabetes diagnosis, and hypertension diagnosis showed a significant association with PA in both settings. However, drinking depicted a strong positive association in urban areas and not in rural areas. Smoking showed no statistically significant associations with PA in both sites (> 0.05). Conclusion The study confirms previous work. PA is higher in rural areas than urban areas highlighting the role of urbanization and globalization in African cities. In general, the Malawian population follows the physical activity recommendations closely. However, efforts to improve PA should ensure equity and equal access to PA facilities focusing on men and urban residents, unemployed, hypertension and diabetes patients.