Abstract
BackgroundThere has been a growing interest in environmental initiatives to reduce sedentary behaviour. A few existing studies on this topic are mostly cross-sectional, focused on the general adult population, and examining neighbourhood walkability. This study examined associations of perceived environmental attributes with change in TV viewing time over seven years among older Australian adults in the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle (AusDiab) study.MethodsThe AusDiab study is a population-based study on diabetes and its risk factors in adults. We used the data on 1072 older adults (60+ years at baseline) collected in 2004–05 (baseline) and in 2011–12 (follow-up; 45. 4% men, mean age 67.5 years). Generalized linear modelling examined associations with 7 years change in TV viewing time of nine perceived neighbourhood-environment attributes relating to local shops, alternative routes, footpaths, parks, attractiveness, natural features, bicycle/walkway tracks, local traffic, and safety.ResultsOn average, participants increased their TV viewing time from 127 min/day to 137 min/day over the 7 years period. Adjusted for baseline TV viewing levels, TV viewing time at follow-up was 8% lower (95%CI: 0.85, 0.99) among those who did not perceive local traffic as a deterrent compared to those who perceived traffic as a deterrent. A trend for significant interaction between working status and the presence of a parks nearby indicated that, for those who were not working, those who reported having parks nearby had a marginal association with lower TV viewing time at follow-up than those who did not (p = 0.048).ConclusionsOverall TV viewing time increased on average by 10 minutes/day over 7 years among older Australian adults. Local traffic that makes walking difficult or unpleasant may increase older adults’ leisure-time sedentary behaviours such as TV viewing, possibly by deterring outdoor activities.
Highlights
There has been a growing interest in environmental initiatives to reduce sedentary behaviour
The present study examined the associations of multiple neighbourhood environmental attributes with changes in TV viewing time over seven years and effect modification of the associations by gender and working status, among older Australian adults, using data from the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle (AusDiab) study
The final study sample size was 1072 (45.4% men). Compared to those who were excluded (n = 477), participants who were retained in the final sample were more likely to be married (p < 0.05), and have smaller waist circumference (p < 0.05). These two groups did not differ in age, gender proportion, educational attainment, household income, work status, change in mobility, TV viewing time, and leisure-time physical activity (LTPA)
Summary
There has been a growing interest in environmental initiatives to reduce sedentary behaviour. This study examined associations of perceived environmental attributes with change in TV viewing time over seven years among older Australian adults in the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle (AusDiab) study. For the general adult population, after accounting for the Prolonged TV viewing time is more prevalent among older adults than other age groups [13,14]. Considering rapidly aging populations in many industrialized nations and the high prevalence of sedentary behaviour in this age group, there is likely to be public health benefit from population-based strategies for reducing TV viewing time among older adults. Recent studies have shown attributes of neighbourhood environments, such as safety and access to destinations, to be associated with older adults’ physical activity [18,19]. Neighbourhood environmental attributes may play a role in older adults’ sedentary behaviours, TV viewing. Only a small number of studies to date have examined these relationships in general adults [20,21,22,23]
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