Objective  To examine current statuses of leisure-time exercise, sedentary and sleeping time and associations of the statuses with the prevalence of hypertension and diabetes among adult residents in Shandong province and to provide evidences for developing relevant intervention measures.

  Methods  We conducted a questionnaire survey, physical examination and laboratory detection among 11 214 residents aged 18 years or older and selected with multi-stage stratified cluster random sampling at 19 sites of National Chronic Disease and Risk Factor Surveillance in Shandong province in September 2013.

  Results  Among the participants, 19.8% reported having leisure-time exercise and the reported average sedentary and sleeping time were 4.59 ± 2.41 and 7.63 ± 1.32 hours/ per day. The prevalence rate of hypertension and diabetes was 29.0% and 9.6% among the participants having leisure-time exercise and the rate was 30.3% and 9.0% among the participants not having leisure-time exercise, respectively, without significant differences in the rates between the two groups of the participants (P > 0.05). Among the participants reporting the sedentary time of < 2, 2 – 2.9, 3 – 3.9, and≥4 hours per day, the prevalence rate of hypertension was 32.3%, 32.6%, 31.9%, and 28.7% and the prevalence rate of diabetes was 8.5%, 8.3%, 9.1%, and 9.4%, respectively, with a significant difference in the prevalence of hypertension (χ² = 15.528, P = 0.001) but not in the prevalence rate of diabetes (P > 0.05) between the participants with different sedentary time. For the participants reporting the sleeping time of < 7, 7 – 8, and > 8 hours per day, the prevalence rate of hypertension was 37.7%, 28.0%, and 31.0% and the prevalence rate of diabetes was 11.3%, 8.4%, and 9.9%, respectively, with significant differences in both the prevalence rate of hypertension and diabetes among the participants with different sleeping time (P < 0.001 for all).

  Conclusion  Among adult residents in Shandong province, the prevalence rate of leisure-time exercise is low, the sedentary time is long, and the sleeping time needs to be improved; the sedentary and sleeping time are correlated with the prevalence of hypertension and the sleeping time is correlated with the prevalence of diabetes.