Too Smoggy to Jog? How Perceived Air Quality Influences Intentions to Engage in Outdoor Physical, Recreational, and Sport Activities

This study examines how perceived outdoor air quality influences intentions to engage in outdoor physical activities. Although air pollution is a major public health issue, its impact on health behaviors, especially physical activity, has been relatively understudied experimentally. The study aims to understand how different indicators of pollution (official information, sensory perceptions, and physical symptoms) affect individuals’ intentions to be active outdoors. In an online vignette experiment, adult residents of France will be exposed to a neutral baseline scenario followed by three progressively degraded pollution scenarios. After each scenario, participants will report their intention to engage in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, as well as their attitudes, self-efficacy, and perceived risk. We expect intentions to decrease progressively across scenarios, accompanied by less positive attitudes, lower self-efficacy, and higher perceived risk. We expect that the effects of scenario on intention will be mediated by these three psychological variables. Additionally, in moderation analyses, we predict that declines in intentions due to the scenario degradation will be be attenuated among participants with higher habitual physical activity, stronger autonomous motivation,greater behavioral automaticity, lower perceived risk related to physical activity., and strengthened among those with a stronger controlled motivation toward physical activity, higher perceived risk related to air pollution. These findings will improve understanding of how environmental perceptions shape health behaviors and may inform public health communication strategies.