Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, 1-19 Torrington Place, London, WC1E 7HB, England.
Department of Behavioural Science and Health, University College London, 1-19 Torrington Place, London, WC1E 7HB, England.
BMC Public Health. 2022 Jun 30;22(1):1275. doi: 10.1186/s12889-022-13670-3.
Leisure activities have wide-ranging benefits for physical and mental health. However, previous studies have often focused on "leisure" as a homogeneous group of activities. This study was therefore designed to take a prospective and comparative approach exploring different types of leisure activities, as well as investigating whether frequency of engagement is associated with strength of benefits.
Data from the 1970 British Cohort Study Waves 9 (age 42) and 10 (age 46) were analysed (N = 5,639). Eight domains derived from the SF-36 health survey questionnaire were used to measure health functioning (general health, vitality, bodily pain, social functioning, physical functioning, mental health, role limitations due to emotional, and role limitations due to physical problems). Leisure activities included physical activity, culture engagement, arts participation, volunteering or community engagement, and literature activities. Both ordinary least squares and logistic regressions were applied.
Physical activity was associated with greater levels of physical functioning, general health, and vitality at higher frequencies, while cultural engagement was associated with social functioning and physical functioning when engaged in several times a year. Arts participation and literature activities had a general negative association with health functioning. Engagements in volunteering/community groups showed varying associations with health functioning (both positive and negative) depending on the levels of engagements.
This research suggests that the types of leisure activities and levels of engagement can have differential associations with health amongst middle-aged adults. This may be helpful for public health initiatives and programmes such as social prescribing schemes when formulating programmes, especially regarding 'dosage' of engagement. Further, the overall benefits of high engagement frequency suggest that increasing leisure engagement could play an important role in supporting improving health and wellbeing at a population level.
背景：休闲活动对身心健康有广泛的益处。然而，以前的研究往往侧重于将“休闲”作为一组同质的活动。因此，本研究旨在采用前瞻性和对比性的方法，探索不同类型的休闲活动，并研究参与活动的频率是否与收益的强度相关。
方法：分析了 1970 年英国队列研究第 9 波（42 岁）和第 10 波（46 岁）的数据（N=5639）。使用来自 SF-36 健康调查问卷的 8 个领域来衡量健康功能（总体健康、活力、身体疼痛、社会功能、身体功能、心理健康、因情感问题导致的角色限制，以及因身体问题导致的角色限制）。休闲活动包括体育活动、文化参与、艺术参与、志愿工作或社区参与以及文学活动。同时应用了普通最小二乘法和逻辑回归。
结果：体育活动与更高的频率下更高水平的身体功能、总体健康和活力相关，而文化参与与每年几次的社会功能和身体功能相关。艺术参与和文学活动与健康功能普遍呈负相关。参与志愿/社区团体的活动与健康功能的关联各不相同（既有积极的也有消极的），这取决于参与的程度。
结论：本研究表明，休闲活动的类型和参与程度可能与中年成年人的健康状况存在差异关联。这对于社会处方计划等公共卫生计划和方案可能是有帮助的，特别是在制定计划时，例如关于参与的“剂量”。此外，高参与频率带来的整体益处表明，增加休闲活动的参与度可能在支持改善人群健康和幸福感方面发挥重要作用。
