Older adults' time in sedentary, light and moderate intensity activities and correlates: application of Australian Time Use Survey.

OBJECTIVES: Understanding how older adults spend their time between active and sedentary activities is an important aspect of healthy ageing. This study examined the time spent in all-domains of sedentary, light and moderate intensity physical activities in old age and identified high-risk groups. DESIGN: A cross-sectional analysis of Australian 2006 Time Use Survey. METHODS: Participants comprised non-working older adults with at least one 24-h time use diary (n=992). Primary activities were recoded by activity domain and intensity. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to calculate the odds ratios of having high sedentary time, low light-intensity physical activity (LIPA), and being insufficiently active (<30 min/day of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, MVPA) by sociodemographic variables. RESULTS: Older adults spent 223 and 121 min/day of their waking time in LIPA and MVPA, respectively, mostly (88%) attributed to household chores. One third of participants spent ≥600 min/day in sedentary activities, 63% spent ≥180 min/day in LIPA, 85% achieved sufficient levels of MVPA by all domains, but only 30% of participants by the leisure/transport domains. Neither age nor socio-economic indicators were associated with insufficient MVPA. Marital status and living arrangement were significant correlates of low MVPA and LIPA but moderated by gender. The only correlate of high sedentary time (>10 h/day) was disability or long-term health condition. CONCLUSIONS: The majority of older Australians are sufficiently active when considering all domains. Household domain is the main source of LIPA and MVPA. In old age, prolonged sitting is associated with disability. Marital status and living arrangements can be used to identify physically inactive seniors.

Investigating the media power of a population health monitoring survey: case study of the NSW Schools Physical Activity and Nutrition Survey (SPANS).

OBJECTIVE: To examine the extent and nature of news coverage of a government-funded population monitoring survey of children and the potential implications of this coverage for public health advocacy. METHODS: Case study of the NSW Schools Physical Activity and Nutrition Survey (SPANS), a population monitoring survey of school-aged children's weight and weight-related behaviours, conducted in 1997, 2004 and 2010. Printed news items from all Australian newspapers between January 1997 and December 2011 mentioning the survey findings were identified from the Factiva database and a descriptive analysis of the content conducted. RESULTS: Overall, 144 news items were identified. The news angles focused mainly on physical activity/sedentary behaviour; overweight/obesity and nutrition; however these angles changed between 1997 and 2011, with angles focused on physical activity/sedentary behaviour increasing, compared with overweight/obesity and nutrition angles (p=0.001). Responsibility for obesity and weight-related behaviours was most frequently assigned to parents and food marketing, and the most common solutions were policy strategies and parental/child education and support. CONCLUSIONS: Population health surveys are newsworthy and when coupled with strategic dissemination, media can contribute to communicating health issues and interpreting findings in ways that are relevant for consumers, policy makers and stakeholders. Implications : This case study emphasises the news value of government-funded population surveys, while providing a cautionary note about media focus on individual studies rather than a larger body of research evidence.

Reduction of diabetes risk in routine clinical practice: are physical activity and nutrition interventions feasible and are the outcomes from reference trials replicable? A systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: The clinical effectiveness of intensive lifestyle interventions in preventing or delaying diabetes in people at high risk has been established from randomised trials of structured, intensive interventions conducted in several countries over the past two decades. The challenge is to translate them into routine clinical settings. The objective of this review is to determine whether lifestyle interventions delivered to high-risk adult patients in routine clinical care settings are feasible and effective in achieving reductions in risk factors for diabetes. DATA SOURCES: MEDLINE (PubMed), EMBASE, CINAHL, The Cochrane Library, Google Scholar, and grey literature were searched for English-language articles published from January 1990 to August 2009. The reference lists of all articles collected were checked to ensure that no relevant suitable studies were missed. STUDY SELECTION: We included RCTs, before/after evaluations, cohort studies with or without a control group and interrupted time series analyses of lifestyle interventions with the stated aim of diabetes risk reduction or diabetes prevention, conducted in routine clinical settings and delivered by healthcare providers such as family physicians, practice nurses, allied health personnel, or other healthcare staff associated with a health service. Outcomes of interest were weight loss, reduction in waist circumference, improvement of impaired fasting glucose or oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) results, improvements in fat and fibre intakes, increased level of engagement in physical activity and reduction in diabetes incidence. RESULTS: Twelve from 41 potentially relevant studies were included in the review. Four studies were suitable for meta-analysis. A significant positive effect of the interventions on weight was reported by all study types. The meta-analysis showed that lifestyle interventions achieved weight and waist circumference reductions after one year. However, no clear effects on biochemical or clinical parameters were observed, possibly due to short follow-up periods or lack of power of the studies meta-analysed. Changes in dietary parameters or physical activity were generally not reported. Most studies assessing feasibility were supportive of implementation of lifestyle interventions in routine clinical care. CONCLUSION: Lifestyle interventions for patients at high risk of diabetes, delivered by a variety of healthcare providers in routine clinical settings, are feasible but appear to be of limited clinical benefit one year after intervention. Despite convincing evidence from structured intensive trials, this systematic review showed that translation into routine practice has less effect on diabetes risk reduction.