Changes in the 24-h movement behaviors during the transition to retirement: compositional data analysis

Area of Science:

• Gerontology
• Public Health
• Behavioral Science

Background:

• Retirement transition significantly impacts daily sleep, sedentary time, and physical activity.
• Previous research has not detailed how retirement alters the daily distribution of these movement behaviors.

Purpose of the Study:

• To longitudinally examine changes in the composition of 24-hour movement behaviors during the retirement transition.
• To utilize compositional data analysis (CoDA) to understand these shifts.

Main Methods:

• Included 551 Finnish public sector workers transitioning to retirement.
• Used wrist-worn accelerometers for one week, 24 hours/day, before and after retirement (1-year interval).
• Applied CoDA with linear mixed models to analyze daily proportions of sleep, sedentary behavior (SED), light physical activity (LPA), and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA).

Main Results:

• A significant decrease in the proportion of active behaviors relative to passive behaviors was observed post-retirement (p < .001).
• Occupation influenced these changes: manual workers increased sleep and SED proportions, while non-manual workers increased sleep relative to active behaviors and SED.
• The proportion of MVPA decreased more than LPA (p = .01), irrespective of gender or occupation.

Conclusions:

• Retirement is associated with a reduced proportion of active behaviors, especially MVPA.
• Further research is needed to develop strategies for maintaining or increasing physical activity among retirees, reducing sedentary time.