The Institute of Sport Exercise and Health’s (ISEH) Professor Mark Hamer, Chair in Sport and Exercise Medicine and dedicated researcher, was a co-author of a study exploring the Health benefits of leisure-time physical activity by socioeconomic status, lifestyle risk, and mental health, and how they might differ across population subgroups.
Regular physical activity is advised for individuals aged 5 and older and there is evidence to support that higher levels of physical activity are associated with a greater number of disease-free years, (but the range of diseases included as outcomes varied considerably, and few studies conducted subgroup analyses). This study aimed to assess these benefits by measuring the number of years lived without major non-communicable diseases across groups with different levels of risk factors.