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Methods: Participants were 47 culturally diverse (76.6% African American, 55.3% with < H.S. education, 63.8% with < $20,000 annual income) older adults (M age = 65.5 years, SD = 10.7) who wore a pedometer (Digi-Walker SW-200) and recorded their daily steps for 14 consecutive days. Participants also completed the SF-36 v2 as a measure of HRQL. It assesses physical function (PF), role physical (RP), bodily pain (BP), general health (GH), vitality (VT), social function (SF), mental health (MH), and role emotional (RE), and provides physical (PCS) and mental (PCS) health composite scores. Before analyses participants were grouped into a high step group (> 3000 average steps) and a low step group (< 3000 average steps).
Analysis/Results:Significant group differences were detected by univariate analyses of variance on the PF, F (1, 46) = 6.49, p < .05, and PCS, F (1, 46) = 5.98, p < .05, subscales. For both subscales, the high step group reported stronger perceptions of physical function than the low step group. In addition, group differences were almost detected on the RP, F (1, 46) = 3.11, p = .09, observed power = .41, and VT, F (1, 46) = 3.37, p = .07, observed power = .44, subscales, with the high step group reporting stronger perceptions of ability to fulfill roles without physical limitations and increased energy.
Conclusions: Although the average step counts of both groups are below the average for healthy older adults, and for the low step group, the average is lower than the average for people with disabilities and illness (Tudor-Locke & Myers, 2001), these data suggest that improving daily steps to at least 3000 may help improve the HRQL of culturally diverse older adults.