Worldwide gender and socioeconomic differences in physical activity–can the gap be closed?

Interventions that focus on decreasing the gender and socioeconomic disparities in physical activity, which exist in most countries across the globe could help to ‘shift the physical inactivity curve’ sufficiently to meet the 2025 World Health Organization (WHO) global physical inactivity target. For example, it has been estimated that an overall improvement of 4.8 percentage points in the median physical inactivity prevalence among women would be required to reduce the overall prevalence of physical inactivity by 10%. This project aims to examine time trends, gender, and socioeconomic differences in different domains of physical inactivity and sedentary time. Data from the HABITAT cohort will be analysed to evaluate how time trends in different domains of physical activity and sedentary time vary by gender and socioeconomic position. Additionally, a systematic review and meta-analysis of the gender and socio-economic differences in physical activity and sedentary time across the adult lifespan, will examine global estimates of these inequalities, and their trends over time.

Funding body: UQ internal initiatives - UQ Development Fellowships 2018