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Updated: Aug 10, 2026
Methodology for Establishing a Community-Wide Life Laboratory for Capturing Unobtrusive and Continuous Remote Activity and Health Data
Published on: July 27, 2018
Routine-recorded physical activity and screening-defined cardio-renal-metabolic vulnerability amongst older adults in
Zhuangzhuang Guo1,2, Yaru Zhong1, Yongheng Zhao1,2
1School of Wushu, Henan University, Kaifeng, China.
Background:
Older adults in rural settings often show overlapping cardiovascular, renal, and metabolic abnormalities, yet the meaning of routine-recorded physical activity in health-examination data remains uncertain.
Objective:
To examine the association between routine-recorded physical activity and screening-defined cardio-renal-metabolic (CRM) vulnerability amongst older adults in Wangkui County, China.
Methods:
This community-based cross-sectional study used data from the 2025 annual health examination programme for adults aged ≥65 years. Physical activity was derived from a routine health-examination item and treated as a coarse activity-status indicator, not as a validated measure of exercise dose, intensity, energy expenditure, or activity domain. The primary exposure was inactive versus active; the three-category classification was retained for secondary analysis. The primary outcome was high screening-defined CRM vulnerability, defined as involvement of at least two cardiovascular, metabolic, and broad renal-urinary domains; this was an operational screening construct, not a clinically validated disease phenotype. Modified Poisson regression with robust standard errors estimated prevalence ratios (PRs), with multiple imputation for primary analyses.
Results:
Amongst participants with non-missing activity data, 852 were inactive and 1,363 were active. In the fully adjusted multiply imputed model, active routine-recorded activity was associated with higher prevalence of high CRM vulnerability than inactivity (PR = 1.121, 95% CI: 1.051-1.197). Similar patterns were observed for severe and subclinical high CRM vulnerability. Domain-specific analyses showed that the positive pattern was observed mainly for cardiovascular burden and broad renal-urinary screening signals, whereas metabolic and stricter renal indicators were weaker or less consistent.
Conclusion:
Being recorded as active in the routine health-examination activity item co-occurred with greater screening-defined CRM vulnerability. This finding should be interpreted as a context-sensitive screening association, not evidence that physical activity causes CRM vulnerability or that structured physical activity is harmful. The renal-urinary signal should be interpreted conservatively because UACR was unavailable and the broader renal-urinary pattern was observed primarily in relation to urine occult blood positivity.