Department of Public Health, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan.
J Epidemiol. 2012;22(4):340-7. doi: 10.2188/jea.je20110057. Epub 2012 May 26.
The proportion of Japanese adults aged 65 years or older is predicted to increase; thus, it is becoming more important to identify factors that influence health status among elderly adults in Japan. We conducted a follow-up study of community-dwelling elderly adults to assess the relationship of hobby activities with mortality and incident frailty.
We randomly selected 3583 individuals aged 65 to 84 years from the residential registries of 7 study areas in Hokkaido, Japan in August 2007. Among them, 1955 (54.6%) returned completed questionnaires with written informed consent by mail. The baseline assessment questionnaire comprised questions on current and past involvement in hobby activities, self-perceived health status, smoking and drinking habits, and body height and weight. Questions on hobby activities were from 4 categories: solitary physical, group physical, solitary cultural, and group cultural activities. We later conducted a follow-up survey of the participants to ascertain all-cause mortality and incident frailty. A Cox proportional hazards model was used for analysis of data from September 2007 to May 2010.
After adjusting for potential confounders, the risk of incident frailty among respondents participating in solitary physical activities was significantly lower than in those who did not participate in such activities (hazard ratio = 0.57; 95% CI 0.33, 0.99). Furthermore, the risk of incident frailty among respondents taking part in group cultural activities was significantly lower than in those who did not participate in such activities (0.41; 0.19, 0.87).
These findings may be important for programs that seek to promote good health among elderly adults.
预计日本 65 岁及以上成年人的比例将会增加，因此，确定影响日本老年人口健康状况的因素变得越来越重要。我们对社区居住的老年人进行了一项随访研究，以评估业余爱好活动与死亡率和衰弱发生率的关系。
我们于 2007 年 8 月从日本北海道的 7 个研究地区的居民登记册中随机选择了 3583 名年龄在 65 至 84 岁之间的人。其中，有 1955 人（54.6%）通过邮寄返回了附有书面知情同意书的完整调查问卷。基线评估问卷包括当前和过去参与业余爱好活动、自我感知健康状况、吸烟和饮酒习惯以及身高和体重的问题。业余爱好活动的问题分为 4 类：独自进行的体育活动、群体进行的体育活动、独自进行的文化活动和群体进行的文化活动。之后，我们对参与者进行了随访调查，以确定所有原因的死亡率和衰弱发生率。使用 Cox 比例风险模型对 2007 年 9 月至 2010 年 5 月的数据进行分析。
在调整了潜在混杂因素后，参与独自进行的体育活动的受访者发生衰弱的风险明显低于不参与此类活动的受访者（风险比=0.57；95%置信区间 0.33，0.99）。此外，参与群体文化活动的受访者发生衰弱的风险明显低于不参与此类活动的受访者（0.41；0.19，0.87）。
这些发现对于旨在促进老年人口健康的计划可能很重要。
