Driving: a road to unhealthy lifestyles and poor health outcomes

Ding, Ding, Gebel, Klaus, Phongsavan, Philayrath, Bauman, Adrian E., and Merom, Dafna (2014) Driving: a road to unhealthy lifestyles and poor health outcomes. PLoS ONE, 9 (6). e94602. pp. 1-5.

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Abstract

Background: Driving is a common part of modern society, but its potential effects on health are not well understood.

Purpose: The present cross-sectional study (n = 37,570) examined the associations of driving time with a series of health behaviors and outcomes in a large population sample of middle-aged and older adults using data from the Social, Economic, and Environmental Factor Study conducted in New South Wales, Australia, in 2010.

Methods: Multiple logistic regression was used in 2013 to examine the associations of usual daily driving time with healthrelated behaviors (smoking, alcohol use, diet, physical activity, sedentary behavior, sleep) and outcomes (obesity, general health, quality of life, psychological distress, time stress, social functioning), adjusted for socio-demographic characteristics.

Results: Findings suggested that longer driving time was associated with higher odds for smoking, insufficient physical activity, short sleep, obesity, and worse physical and mental health. The associations consistently showed a dose-response pattern and more than 120 minutes of driving per day had the strongest and most consistent associations with the majority of outcomes.

Conclusion: This study highlights driving as a potential lifestyle risk factor for public health. More population-level multidisciplinary research is needed to understand the mechanism of how driving affects health.

Item ID: 34110
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 1932-6203
Additional Information:

Copyright: © 2014 Ding et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funders: Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)
Projects and Grants: NHMRC (#569940)
Date Deposited: 16 Jul 2014 09:18
FoR Codes: 11 MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES > 1117 Public Health and Health Services > 111712 Health Promotion @ 100%
SEO Codes: 92 HEALTH > 9204 Public Health (excl. Specific Population Health) > 920499 Public Health (excl. Specific Population Health) not elsewhere classified @ 100%
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