Project Details

In times of demographic change, it is a principal object of Health Sciences to enable healthy aging. The promotion of physical activity is of particular importance as it has a positive impact on almost all common lifestyle diseases. In this context, the cardiovascular diseases are particularly noteworthy as they are the main cause of death in the European Union. Thus, physical activity can make a contribution to sustain health at old age. In the past, interventions to promote physical activity were little successful. Factors influencing physical activity are numerous and can be grouped in intra-, inter- and extrapersonal factors. However, for the age group 65-75-years, there is an urgent need for research in the field of outdoor physical activity. Therefore, the subject of this thesis is to identify the influence of attitudes, driving factors and barriers on physical activity in 65-75-year-olds. This will be done based on secondary data from the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement (SHARE), primary data from the OUTDOOR ACTIVE project and data of an accelerometer-validation study. In OUTDOOR ACTIVE a mail survey (questionnaire) is carried out and supplemented with objective data of a fitness test, an examination (anthropometry and blood pressure) and a physical activity measurement with accelerometers (wearing time: 24 hours, 7 days).