The association between physical activity and self-rated health in Atlantic Canadians

ABSTRACT

The population of Atlantic Canada is aging rapidly and has among the highest rates of chronic disease in the country. This cross-sectional study drew data from the Atlantic Partnership for Tomorrow’s Health (Atlantic PATH) study to investigate the association between physical activity and self-rated health among adults in this population. The results suggest that physical activity is associated with and may help to improve perceived health status of individuals with one or more chronic conditions. The findings support literature suggesting that physical activity can be beneficial for adults as they age with chronic disease.

KEYWORDS:

• Self-rated health
• physical activity
• aging
• chronic disease
• Atlantic PATH
• Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow Project

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Atlantic PATH participants who donated their time, personal health history, and biological samples to this project. We would also like to thank the Atlantic PATH team members for data collection and management.

This research has been conducted using Atlantic PATH data, under application AP2019-102. The data from each of the five cohorts in the Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow Project are available for use by researchers (https://portal.partnershipfortomorrow.ca). Details on the data access process for Atlantic PATH can be found at https://www.atlanticpath.ca.

Disclosure Statement

The authors have no conflict of interest to report.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Additional information

Funding

Production of this study has been made possible through financial support from the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer and Health Canada. The views expressed herein represent the views of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Health Canada.