Description

Background: In the United States, the prevalence of meeting the aerobic and muscle-strengthening guidelines, a cost-effective strategy to prevent chronic diseases is low for women with functional disabilities (15.3%) compared to women without any disabilities (23.1%). A gap remains for women with disabilities in meeting the recommended physical guidelines, illustrating the importance of further investigation. We examined the association between meeting physical activity guidelines and living arrangements among women with functional disabilities ages 18-64 years that participated in the 2019 BRFSS. Methods: The study population included 29,047 women aged 18-64 years with functional disabilities. The association between following physical activity guidelines provided by The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, 2nd edition, and living arrangements (living alone or living with household members) was examined. The multivariate logistic regression analysis adjusting for social demographic variables, urbanicity, smoking, heavy drinking consumption, chronic diseases, and BMI was used to estimate the association at a significance level of 0.05. Results: Of the 418,268 participants, 389,221 were excluded because of study population inclusion criteria and incomplete responses to the survey. Among the study population, 14.7% followed the physical activity guidelines and 17.0% reported living alone. After adjusting for covariates, the odds (OR 0.767, 95% CI 0.651-0.905) of following recommended physical activity were significantly higher among women living with household members compared to women living alone. Discussion: Living alone is a risk factor for engaging in physical activity among women with disability. Social support should be considered an important criterion for engaging in physical activity among people with disability. Further investigation is required to assess the potential causes such as emotional barriers not assessed in this study. Conclusion: The findings from this study point to the impact of living arrangements on physical activity among women with disabilities. Opportunities exist for the continued promotion of physical activity using resources and programs that build social support.