Objective: Insufficient physical activity (PA) is a well-known risk factor for many non-communicable diseases. This study aimed to develop a screening tool, the Helsinki Physical Activity Questionnaire (HPAQ), to identify physically inactive people at the population level and to help social and health care professionals promote PA among people at risk.

Methods: Eighty-five healthy adults wore a hip-worn accelerometer for 7 days, after which they completed several PA questionnaires. These included some novel and several validated questions on PA. The reliability of individual questions to identify physically inactive people was assessed by correlation analysis. Logistic regression analysis was used to find the combination of questions that best identified physically inactive people.

Results: The highest correlation of the screening questionnaire with the accelerometer was 0.46 (p < 0.001) for sedentary behavior (SB) and 0.42 (p < 0.001) for the total amount of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), respectively. The best pair of questions on total PA identified 64% of all inactive subjects (MVPA < 150 min/week) based on accelerometer data.

Conclusions: The questionnaires developed for screening PA have a poor correlation with the accelerometer data. The screening questionnaires roughly describe PA level among middle-aged participants, but if a more sensitive or specific method is needed, device-based measurements are recommended.

Keywords: mass screening; physical activity; questionnaire; sedentary behaviors; validation.

© 2025 The Author(s). Public Health Challenges published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

目标: 缺乏身体活动（PA）是许多非传染性疾病的一个众所周知的风险因素。本研究旨在开发一种筛查工具，即赫尔辛基身体活动问卷（HPAQ），以在人口水平上识别身体不活跃的人，并帮助社会和卫生保健专业人员促进风险人群的身体活动。

方法: 85名健康成人佩戴髋部加速度计7天，之后他们完成了多个身体活动问卷。这些问卷包括一些新颖的问题以及几个经过验证的关于身体活动的问题。通过相关分析评估单个问题识别身体不活跃人的可靠性。使用逻辑回归分析来寻找最能识别身体不活跃人的一组问题。

结果: 筛选问卷与加速度计数据在久坐行为（SB）方面的最高相关性为0.46（( p

结论: 用于筛查身体活动的问卷与加速度计数据的相关性较差。筛选问卷大致描述了中年参与者的身体活动水平，但如果需要更敏感或特异的方法，则建议使用基于设备的测量方法。

关键词: 大规模筛查；身体活动；问卷；久坐行为；验证。