Article Text
Abstract
Objectives To investigate individual, interpersonal and environmental baseline factors predicting regular aerobic physical activity (PA) participation among older adults in Germany at follow-up 12 years later.
Design Population-based cohort study.
Setting Cluster-randomised general population sample selected based on population registry address information from 130 nationally distributed sample points collected from 1997 to 1999 and re-evaluated 12 years later from 2008 to 2011.
Participants 1184 adults, aged 65 years or older at follow-up with complete data at baseline and follow-up, were included in the final study sample.
Outcome measure Regular ‘aerobic PA ≥1 day/week’ assessed based on self-reported information.
Results At follow-up, 53.2% of the participants engaged in aerobic PA ≥1 day/week. Participants aged 50 to 60 years at baseline were more likely to engage in aerobic PA ≥1 day/week than participants aged 61 to 78 years; OR 1.88, 95% CI 1.46 to 2.40. Participants with middle and high socioeconomic status (SES) were more likely to engage in aerobic PA ≥1 day/week than participants with low SES; OR middle SES 2.08, 1.33 to 3.25; high SES 3.44, 2.11 to 5.60. Participants with high social support were more likely to engage in aerobic PA ≥1 day/week at follow-up than participants with low social support; OR 1.98, 1.26 to 3.12. Furthermore, participants who engaged in leisure time PA at least once per week at baseline were more likely to engage in aerobic PA ≥1 day/week at follow-up than those who engaged less than once per week; OR 1.95, 1.46 to 2.60.
Conclusions Several influencing factors assessed at baseline predicted regular aerobic PA participation 12 years later. These factors should be considered when planning interventions to prevent physical inactivity in older adults. There is great potential to increase aerobic PA participation in older adults in Germany, in particular among those with low SES and low social support.
- physical activity
- determinants
- healthy aging
- older people
- Germany
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Footnotes
Contributors GBMM was involved in the design and conduct of GNHIES98 and DEGS1 in particular for the physical activity questions. SK and KM conceptualised the current study. KM conducted the present analysis and drafted the manuscript. GBMM, SJ, AS and JDF contributed to the analysis plan and interpretation of the results. GBMM, SJ, AS, SK and JDF critically revised it. JDF contributed to the writing of the manuscript. All authors contributed to the interpretation of findings, reviewed, edited and approved the final manuscript.
Funding The Health Surveys GNHIES98 and DEGS1 are funded by the Federal Ministry of Health Germany.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent Obtained.
Ethics approval The study GNHIES98 was approved by the Board of the Federal Commissioner Data Protection Berlin. DEGS1 was approved by the Federal and State Commissioners for Data Protection and by the Charité-University Medicine Berlin ethic committee (no EA2/047/08).
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data sharing statement Datasets of GNHIES98 and DEGS1 are available via Public Use File (http://www.rki.de/DE/Content/Gesundheitsmonitoring/Forschungsdatenzentrum/informationen_antrag/info_antrag_node.html).