Association between the frequency of going outdoors by life space and incident disability among older adults

Going outdoors is crucial in promoting older adults' health. This study examined the association between incident disability and the frequency of going outdoors in certain life spaces.

This prospective study included 19,822 older adults (mean age ± standard deviation: 73.5 ± 5.8 years; 53.6 % women). The frequency of going outdoors within the past month was collected based on life space, categorized by distance from home (up to 1 km; 1-10 km; and >10 km). Participants were classified into three groups (called "Rarely": less than 1 day, "Sometimes": 1 to 3 days, and "Often": 4 days or more) for each life space. Incident disability was defined using the Long-Term Care Insurance system data (mean follow-up: 23.3 months). A Cox proportional hazards model was used to examine the association between incident disability and the frequency of going outdoors for each life space, adjusted for covariates.

A total of 1038 (5.2 %) participants had an incident disability. Within the "up to 1 km" category, no frequency group was associated with disability; within "1-10 km," two frequency groups were associated with disability ("Sometimes" group: hazard ratio [HR] 0.85, [95 % confidence interval [CI]: 0.73-0.99]; "Often" group: HR 0.68, [95 % CI: 0.57-0.81]); within ">10 km," similar results were observed ("Sometimes" group: HR 0.84, [95 % CI: 0.72-0.98]; "Often" group: HR 0.75, [95 % CI: 0.53-1.07]).

The frequency of going outdoors at specific distances from home is associated with disability.