Objective  To explore the impact of insufficient physical activity (PA) on mortality and life expectancy among residents aged 25 years and above in Ningbo city of Zhejiang province.

  Methods  The population data of the study included prevalence of PA collected from chronic diseases surveillance in adult residents in 2015, mortality of residents extracted from municipal death registry of 2015, demographic data, relative risks of diseases correlated with insufficient physical activity from Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD). Based on the data collected, we calculated insufficient PA-related population attributable fraction (PAF) of the diseases, attributable mortalities, and losses in life expectancy in 2015 for the population surveyed.

  Results  The insufficient PA-related PAF for all cause of mortality was 1.86% among the residents surveyed and the PAF was 1.73% and 2.04% among the male and the female residents. The insufficient PA-related PAF for disease-specific mortalities were 12.98%, 11.81%, 10.43%, 9.03%, and 7.31% for diabetes, colon and rectum cancer, ischemic stroke, breast cancer, and ischemic heart disease, respectively. Among the residents in 2015, the number of all-cause mortality attributable to insufficient PA was 709 and the greatest number of disease-specific mortality was 246 for ischemic stroke, followed by 169, 152, 118, and 23 for ischemic heart disease, diabetes, colon and rectum cancer, and breast cancer. For the residents in 2015, insufficient PA-related reduction in life expectancy was 0.229 year for all the residents, with 0.209 and 0.250 year for the male and female residents, 0.230 and 0.227 year for the urban and rural residents, respectively.

  Conclusion  Insufficient physical activity has increased the burden of diseases among in residents Ningbo city and promoting physical activity could reduce attributed deaths and increase life expectancy in the population.