Healthy lifestyle habits and quality of life in aging: comparing bigger and smaller cities

Abstract

Positive trends in aging were found in different domains, including emotional regulation, social relationships etc. Healthy lifestyle has been shown to affect a variety of characteristics of an aging person. In our study we concentrated on associations between different lifestyle habits (HLH) and characteristics of quality of life. We supposed that HLH can vary depending on the type of city, we also hypothesized that the associations between HLH and quality of life in bigger and smaller cities would be different. In the present we recruited participants (N=70) from two comparatively big cities in Russia - Saint-Petersburg (N=40; population 5.1 mln. people) and Nizhni Novgorod (N=30; population 1.2 mln. people). Participants, aged 50-81, had no major physical or mental problems. Methods used were: 1. Survey on HLH (subscales: physical activity, balance, bad habits, diet, chronic conditions, sleep, social engagement, and adaptabilty); 2. SF-36 Health Status survey. Results showed that older adults from smaller city had better balance, they more often kept up to diet, they were less engaged in social interaction and have lower scores in adaptabilty than people from bigger city. In both groups we found correlations between social engagement, adaptability and characteristics of quality of life. In bigger city quality of life was negatively associated with diet, while in smaller - with absence of bad habits. Our results confirmed that HLH have positive associations with quality of life regardless of the city specifics, but the mechanisms of this effect differ. Study is supported by RFH grant 16-06-00315