Leisure Activities and All-Cause Mortality Among the Chinese Oldest-Old Population: A Prospective Community-Based Cohort Study

Objective: To investigate associations between leisure activities, examining each activity separately and in combination, and all-cause mortality among the Chinese oldest-old (≥80 years) population.

Design: Prospective cohort study.

Setting: Community-living, the oldest-old from 22 provinces in China.

Participants: We included 30,070 Chinese individuals aged ≥80 years (mean age: 92.7 years) from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey from 1998 to 2014.

Measurements: Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate relationships between leisure activities and all-cause mortality, adjusting for covariates including sociodemographic and lifestyle factors, self-reported medical history, and other potential confounders.

Results: During 110,278 person-years of follow-up, 23,661 deaths were documented. Participants who engaged in watching TV or listening to the radio, playing cards or mah-jong, reading books or newspapers, gardening, keeping domestic animals or pets, or attending religious activities "almost every day" had a significantly lower mortality risk (adjusted hazard ratios ranged from 0.82 to 0.89; P < .01 for all) than did participants who "never" engaged in those activities. Furthermore, engagement in multiple leisure activities was associated with a reduced risk of all-cause mortality (P for the trend < .001).

Conclusions and implications: Frequent participation in leisure activities might help decrease the risk of death in the Chinese oldest-old population. This finding has important implications for public health policy and encourages the incorporation of a broad range of leisure activities into the daily lives of oldest-old individuals.