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Published on: March 7, 2019
Association Between Employment Status and Objectively Measured Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior-The
Anna Pulakka1, Sari Stenholm, Hans Bosma
1Department of Public Health, University of Turku and Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland (Dr Pulakka, Dr Stenholm); Care and Public Health Research Institute (Dr Bosma, Dr Schaper, Dr Dagnelie, Dr Koster); Department of Social Medicine (Dr Bosma, Dr Koster); School for Cardiovascular Diseases (Dr Schaper, Dr Stehouwer, Dr van der Kallen, Dr Dagnelie, Dr Sep); Department of Human Movement Sciences (Dr Savelberg); School for Nutrition and Translational Research in Metabolism (Dr Savelberg); Department of Epidemiology (Dr Dagnelie), Maastricht University; and Department of Internal Medicine, Maastricht University Medical Centre (Dr Schaper, Dr Stehouwer, Dr van der Kallen, Dr Sep), Maastricht, the Netherlands.
Objective:
To examine the association between employment status and physical activity and sedentary behavior.
Methods:
We included 2045 participants from The Maastricht Study, who used a thigh-worn accelerometer. We compared time spent sedentary, standing, stepping, and higher intensity physical activity between participants with different employment status (non-employed or low-, intermediate- or high-level occupation) with analysis of variance.
Results:
Participants in low-level occupations were less sedentary and standing and stepping more than those in other occupational categories and non-employed participants. Among the employed, the differences were mostly observed on weekdays, whereas the differences in sedentary time and standing between those in low-level occupations and non-employed participants were evident both on weekdays and weekend days.
Conclusions:
Those in low-level occupational category were less sedentary and more active than non-employed and those in other occupational categories, especially on weekdays.
