A low cardiorespiratory fitness is an independent risk factor for mortality from all causes, but mainly for coronary heart disease. Nevertheless, there are many difficulties to evaluate it by exercise testing in the epidemiological context. Alternative forms of evaluation have therefore been suggested using non-exercise regression models. This study aimed to review and critically analyze these models and their applicability in epidemiological studies. A systematic review was conducted considering papers published between 1966 and 2002. There were selected 24 studies attending the inclusion criteria. Only five of them related the standard error of estimation (SEE), the equation fully reported, present a higher sample size and made the cross-validation. These studies presented a higher adjusted R², what mean the quality and the prediction power of them. The authors conclude that cardiorespiratory evaluation by non-exercise models in epidemiological studies could be feasible. However, few models seem to fulfill the minimum external validation requirements to provide data that could be generalized for large populations.
Physical fitness; Regression analysis; Epidemiology
