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• Published: 19 February 2024

Leisure engagement in older age is related to objective and subjective experiences of aging

• Jessica K. Bone   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6019-7066 1 ,
• Feifei Bu 1 ,
• Jill K. Sonke 2 &
• Daisy Fancourt   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6952-334X 1  

Nature Communications volume  15 , Article number:  1499 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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• Epidemiology
• Human behaviour
• Lifestyle modification

Leisure engagement has potential to slow health and functional decline in older age. However, the benefits of different leisure domains for different aspects of aging remains unclear. In 8771 older adults from the Health and Retirement Study (a longitudinal panel study), we measured engagement in physical, creative, cognitive, and community activities. Outcome-wide analyses used 23 aging experiences across seven domains eight years later (daily functioning, physical fitness, long-term physical health problems, heart health, weight, sleep, subjective perceptions of health). Physical activity was related to more positive experiences in all domains but heart health eight years later. Creative engagement was positively related to aging experiences in four domains longitudinally. Cognitive and community engagement were less consistently related to aging experiences. Physical and creative activities may influence important aging metrics, reducing age-related decline and keeping older adults functionally independent for longer, potentially limiting increasing healthcare costs.

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Introduction.

Leisure engagement has been shown to be evolutionarily beneficial. Defined as voluntary non-work activities that are participated in for pleasure 1 , leisure includes everyday activities such as hobbies, arts, culture, sports, educational classes, volunteering, and community groups. There is extensive evidence linking leisure engagement to physical and mental health across the life course, from the benefits of play for children’s development 2 to the role of community engagement in preventing cognitive decline and dementia 3 , 4 . Although leisure engagement is a ubiquitous human experience, it is often undervalued. Leisure activities are often viewed as secondary to work, only engaged in when people have available time and resources. Leisure has also been commodified for capitalism 5 , leading to increases in cost, limiting accessibility, and contributing to some forms of leisure becoming elite activities, only participated in by those of higher socioeconomic position 6 , 7 .

Internationally, many aging cohorts include questions on leisure engagement, but they have not been widely used to understand aging. It thus remains unclear which leisure activities impact different aspects of aging. Theoretically, leisure engagement may help to prevent age-related decline through wide-ranging causal mechanisms, including psychological (e.g., enhancing self-efficacy), biological (e.g., reducing levels of stress hormones), social (e.g., increasing social support), and behavioral (e.g., enhancing motivation to engage in other health behaviors) pathways 8 . Different leisure activities can be grouped and considered to affect health based on their active ingredients and the mechanisms of action that they stimulate 8 , such as the extent to which they include social contact, sedentary behavior, or working towards a goal. However, previous studies have often focused on single domains of leisure, such as arts engagement 9 or physical activity 10 , or have selected specific health outcomes, including depression 11 , dementia 12 , and wellbeing 13 . Although some studies have explored leisure engagement and broader experiences of aging, these have been relatively small and did not include nationally representative samples 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 . The extent to which different types of leisure activities independently influence aging experiences, including objective and subjective measures of health, requires further investigation.

The potential benefits of leisure activities become increasingly relevant for older adults. Later in life, close social ties may be lost; people are more likely to live alone, many have low income, and progressive age-related chronic diseases may limit activities 19 . As a result, maintaining positive behaviors that keep people healthy may become more challenging. The transition from work to retirement can lead to a loss of activity, social contacts, and purpose 20 , 21 and cognitive decline 22 . However, it can also result in increased time for leisure activities. There is even some evidence that leisure activities become increasingly beneficial after retirement 23 , 24 . Understanding the wide-ranging potential benefits of leisure activities, beyond addressing individual deficits, is thus particularly important in older adults. It also has implications for healthcare systems internationally, given the increasing interest in referring older adults to community-based activities through social prescribing 9 , 25 .

In this study, we take an outcome-wide approach 26 , 27 , assessing experiences of aging related to physical health. We include 23 outcomes across seven domains: daily functioning, physical fitness, long-term physical health problems, heart health, weight, sleep, and subjective perceptions of health. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), we compare four domains of leisure activities: physical, creative, cognitive, and community activities. We show positive associations between some domains of leisure engagement, particularly physical and creative activities, and many (but not all) age-related processes. As relationships are independent of a range of demographic, socioeconomic, and neighborhood factors, our findings suggest physical and creative activities could influence these important aging metrics. Older adults should be supported and encouraged to incorporate physical and creative activities into their everyday lives. Our findings thus support previous evidence that leisure engagement is evolutionarily beneficial, relevant to humans and their health, and should be used to understand experiences of aging.

We included 8771 older adults (55% female) who participated in HRS between 2006 and 2018. Ages ranged from 50 to 94 (mean = 63.18, standard deviation [SD] = 8.45). Overall, 85% were of White race/ethnicity, 10% Black/African American, and 5% identified as Other race/ethnicities, 71% were married, and 48% were retired (Table  S3 ). The HRS Social Engagement questionnaire measured participation in 15 leisure activities, which have previously been categorized into physical, creative, cognitive, and community activities 28 . The frequency of engagement in each domain ranged from 0 (never) to 6 (daily). Physical activities were most frequently engaged in (mean = 3.43, SD = 1.76), followed by cognitive (mean = 2.86, SD = 1.16), creative (mean = 2.59, SD = 1.16), and community activities (mean = 1.26, SD = 0.86). Correlations between leisure domains ranged from r  = 0.21 to r  = 0.34.

Using an outcome-wide approach, the longitudinal associations between each activity domain and experiences of aging eight years later are presented in Fig.  1 . We assessed 23 outcomes across seven domains: daily functioning, physical fitness, long-term physical health problems, heart health, weight, sleep, subjective perceptions of health (Table  S4 ). The type of regression model and the included sample size were determined by each outcome (sample size varied because of subsample eligibility; Table  S1 ). Models included all four leisure domains and are presented before and after adjustment for demographic, socioeconomic, and neighborhood covariates (age, gender, race/ethnicity, marital status, education, employment, pension status, household income, assets, household size, and neighborhood safety, physical disorder, and social cohesion) and the baseline measure of the outcome in Tables  S5 and S6 . Findings from the fully adjusted models are reported here.

Data are presented as coefficients and accompanying 95% confidence intervals. Results adjusted for demographic, socioeconomic, and neighborhood covariates, weighted, and based on 20 imputed datasets. A Physical activities. B Creative activities. C Cognitive activities. D Community activities. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.

Physical activities

More frequent engagement in physical activities (e.g., sport/exercise, walking) was associated with all aspects of daily functioning, physical fitness, long-term physical health problems, and subjective perceptions of health eight years later (Fig.  1 ). The strongest associations were for higher odds of better static balance (odds ratio [OR] = 1.13, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.09–1.17) and less perceived difficulties with balance (OR = 0.91, 95% CI = 0.89-0.94), and lower odds of difficulties with mobility (OR = 0.88, 95% CI = 0.86-0.91), difficulties with activities of daily living (ADLs; incidence rate ratio [IRR] = 0.91, 95% CI = 0.87–0.95), and chronic health conditions (OR = 0.90, 95% CI = 0.88–0.93). There was mixed evidence for associations between weight and sleep. For example, more frequent physical activity was associated with lower odds of being overweight but not waist circumference.

Creative activities

More frequent engagement in creative activities (e.g., gardening, needlework, and hobbies) was associated with some aspects of daily functioning, physical fitness, sleep, and subjective perceptions of health eight years later. The strongest associations were fewer difficulties with ADLs (IRR = 0.89, 95% CI = 0.84–0.95) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs; OR = 0.90, 95% CI = 0.84–0.96), higher odds of good static balance (OR = 1.09, 95% CI = 1.03–1.16), and lower odds of using sleep medication (OR = 0.84, 95% CI = 0.78–0.91). However, there was no longitudinal evidence that creative engagement was associated with subsequent long-term physical health problems, heart health, or weight.

Cognitive activities

There was only evidence for longitudinal associations between engaging in cognitive activities (e.g., reading, writing, and games) more frequently and lower odds of not feeling rested after sleep (OR = 0.93, 95% CI = 0.88–0.98) and rating eyesight as poor (OR = 0.94, 95% CI = 0.90–0.99).

Community activities

There was no evidence for protective associations between more frequent engagement in community activities (e.g., volunteering, educational courses, and sports/social clubs) and aging experiences eight years later. However, more frequent community engagement was associated with higher odds of chronic health conditions eight years later (OR = 1.09, 95% CI = 1.03–1.17).

Concurrent associations

Cross-sectional associations between each activity domain and experiences of aging are also presented in the Supplementary Materials (Tables  S7 and S8 ). Concurrently, there was strong evidence that physical activities were positively associated with nearly all aspects of aging. Creative activities were also positively associated with most aspects of all domains of aging. Cognitive activities were only positively associated with subjective perceptions of eyesight but were also associated with worse outcomes in diastolic blood pressure, BMI, and waist circumference. Community activities were associated with lower odds of high systolic blood pressure, not feeling rested after sleep, rating eyesight as poor, and perceived difficulties with balance.

Sensitivity analyses

We computed E-values as indicators of how robust findings were to potential unmeasured confounding 29 . Longitudinally, where there was evidence of associations between leisure engagement and subsequent aging experiences, E-values varied between 1.08 and 1.67 (Table  S6 ). This indicates that any unmeasured confounders that were associated with both the exposure and outcome by risk ratios of between 1.08- and 1.67-fold, conditional on the measured demographic, socioeconomic, and neighborhood confounders, could shift the observed associations to the null.

In further sensitivity analyses, we additionally adjusted for health covariates (cognition, depressive symptoms, prescription medication, psychiatric problems, self-rated health measured at baseline) and health behavior covariates (alcohol use and smoking measured at the wave prior to baseline). After doing so, associations between physical and creative activities, daily functioning, and physical fitness remained similar (Table  S9 ). However, associations with other aspects of aging were attenuated. There remained very little evidence for associations between cognitive and community activities and experiences of aging.

As there were concerns about potential bias due to controlling for the outcome at baseline, we also repeated the longitudinal adjusted analyses after omitting the baseline outcome measure (Table  S10 ). Evidence for associations between leisure activities and experiences of aging remained similar, albeit slightly stronger, for physical, creative, and cognitive activities.

We also performed sensitivity analyses, including different levels of leisure engagement, to provide a more comprehensive picture of the associations with experiences of aging (Tables  S11A and S11B ). We categorized engagement frequencies into none, monthly, and weekly engagement. This indicated that, for physical activities, most of the associations with experiences of aging were driven by more frequent weekly engagement. There were fewer associations for participants who only engaged monthly. In contrast, for creative activities, findings were more similar across monthly and weekly engagement frequencies, showing less of a dose-response relationship. This suggests that any level of engagement in creative activities could potentially be beneficial.

Finally, due to concerns around reverse causation, we limited the sample to participants without chronic health conditions at baseline (Table  S12 ). This resulted in small sample sizes ( n  = 395 to n  = 1460), meaning there was very little evidence for associations between leisure engagement and experiences of aging after adjusting for the wide range of covariates. However, coefficients and confidence intervals were generally in line with the main analyses.

In this nationally representative sample of older adults in the US, physical activity was most consistently associated with experiences of aging. It was related to more positive aging experiences in all domains except heart health 8 years later. Engagement in creative activities was also positively related to some aspects of daily functioning, physical fitness, sleep, and subjective perceptions of health longitudinally. However, cognitive and community activity engagement were less consistently related to aging experiences. Looking across health domains, daily functioning, physical fitness, and subjective perceptions of health were most often associated with leisure engagement. Associations were independent of other domains of leisure, demographic, socioeconomic, and neighborhood factors, and previous experiences of aging. Sensitivity analyses also indicated that findings were relatively robust to unmeasured confounding and additional adjustment for health and health behavior covariates.

Given the wealth of previous evidence for the health benefits of physical activity 10 , 11 , 30 , 31 , 32 , it is unsurprising that this form of leisure was most consistently associated with experiences of aging. The consistent associations between physical activity (sport/exercise, walking for 20 min or more) and a wide range of outcomes eight years later suggest that these activities contain a range of active ingredients that support older adults’ health. Our findings extend previous evidence by showing the broad positive impacts of physical activity across domains, allowing for comparison of standardized effects across health outcomes, and demonstrating that these associations are independent of participation in creative, community, and cognitive activities. Sensitivity analyses indicate the importance of regular physical activity, with most associations only present for weekly or more frequent engagement. Physical activity may influence experiences of aging through unique pathways not activated by other leisure activities, such as adaptations of physiological systems, including the neuromuscular system that coordinates movements, and metabolic processes regulating glucose and fatty acid metabolism 33 .

As outcomes typically worsen across all domains in older age, physical activity could be used to optimize health by slowing decline and better-maintaining experiences of aging. Regardless of their engagement in other types of leisure, all older adults should be supported and encouraged to incorporate some form of exercise into their everyday lives. However, although more frequent physical activity was associated with lower BMI 8 years later, it was not associated with blood pressure, pulse, or waist circumference. This lack of longitudinal associations was unexpected in comparison to previous findings 32 . It is possible that including low-intensity exercise, such as walking, in our measure of physical activity masked longitudinal associations between higher-intensity activity and these outcomes. Future research should explore different types of physical activity separately.

The evidence for associations between creative activities (e.g., hobbies, gardening, and needlework) and experiences of aging was less consistent but generally positive. This is in line with previous inconsistent evidence. Whilst some studies have shown that creative activities provide additional benefits for older adults over other leisure activities 8 , 34 , 35 , others have found less clear evidence for associations between creative activities, healthy aging 18 , and cognitive decline 36 . In this study, the strongest relationships for creative activities were with daily functioning and physical fitness. By accounting for previous levels of functioning and fitness, we effectively estimated the change in these outcomes over 8 years. Doing creative activities as infrequently as monthly may help to prevent age-related decline in physical functioning and fitness, even if they do not influence all aspects of aging. It is surprising that these creative activities were more strongly associated with aging experiences than community activities (e.g., volunteering, educational courses, clubs, and organizations), which are more likely to include social interaction. This suggests that it is not just the social element of activities that can benefit older adults. Other mechanisms through which creative activities might prevent decline include maintaining cognitive flexibility 8 , reducing stress and inflammation 37 , and providing a sense of purpose and meaning in life 38 .

The lack of consistent associations between community activities, cognitive activities (e.g., reading, writing, and playing games), and experiences of aging was unexpected. There is extensive evidence that community and cognitive activities can benefit a range of health outcomes in later life, including self-rated health, frailty, disability, chronic pain, dementia, depression, and wellbeing 4 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 . It is possible that community and cognitive activities are more strongly associated with mental than physical health. However, we have previously found that attending cultural activities (a form of community engagement) is associated with healthy aging, particularly physical functioning 18 . Additionally, volunteering (another form of community engagement), has been linked to a range of health outcomes 45 , although a systematic review also found stronger evidence for the benefits of volunteering on mental than physical health 46 . The lack of evidence for associations with experience of aging in this study could also be due to prodromal effects, whereby people already experiencing health deficits were less likely to engage 47 . Engagement in the preceding decades would need to be measured to explore this further. Given that there were more concurrent than longitudinal associations between cognitive and community engagement and aging experiences, it is also possible that these types of activities are perishable commodities requiring consistent engagement to achieve potential health benefits 48 . Sustained community cultural engagement has a larger impact on older adults’ well-being than short-term or repeated engagement 49 . Furthermore, community activities could enhance aging experiences by reducing sedentary behavior 8 . As we adjusted for physical activity, any mediating effects of sedentary behavior may already be accounted for, making estimates of the associations between community engagement and aging experiences more conservative.

Some domains of aging experiences (e.g., daily functioning, physical fitness, and subjective perceptions of health) may be more closely linked to leisure engagement than others (e.g., long-term physical health problems, heart health, and weight). These relationships are likely bidirectional, as older adults with better health are more able to participate in leisure activities 15 , 38 , which then further supports subsequent aging. The paucity of associations between most leisure activities and persistent pain contrasts with previous research. In older adults in the UK, regular physical activity and cultural engagement were protective against the development of chronic pain 50 . However, the previous study explored the onset of pain in people originally free from pain over longer timescales. Methodological differences could explain why not all of our findings align with previous evidence. This demonstrates the importance of outcome-wide analyses using harmonized measures. It is also interesting that the associations between leisure engagement and subjective perceptions of health were often larger than associations with objective measures of health. Objective measures of health, with deeper roots in pathological and biological processes, may be more difficult to modify. Leisure engagement could be more likely to influence older adults’ attitudes towards their health than their actual physical health. This is still useful because subjective evaluations of physical health may be more strongly related to older adults’ well-being than objective measures 51 .

This study has a number of strengths. We compared the associations between four different types of leisure engagement, independent of other leisure domains, and adjusted for demographic, socioeconomic, and neighborhood covariates likely to play a role in leisure engagement 6 , 7 . We additionally adjusted for health and health behaviors in sensitivity analyses which, alongside adjusting for the baseline measure of the outcome, should help to address reverse causality. HRS is a large nationally representative cohort of older adults, making our findings more generalizable to the US population than previous small studies of leisure and experiences of aging 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 . Analyses were weighted using HRS sample weights to account for non-response and the complex sample design.

However, this study also has several limitations. We measured leisure engagement at baseline and thus could not compare the effects of sustained or changing engagement on experiences of aging. As HRS only started measuring these leisure activities in 2008, this study included a relatively short follow-up of eight years. Future research should explore whether any potential benefits of engagement are maintained over longer periods as more data become available. Despite including a range of covariates, sensitivity analyses indicated that our findings were susceptible to unmeasured confounding, which could be due to factors such as urbanicity, diet, and social support. We did not adjust the main analyses for health or health behavior covariates, as it is likely that these mediate the associations between leisure engagement and experiences of aging. Although we have included these covariates in sensitivity analyses, this could have led to overly conservative estimates, and there was still evidence for similar degrees of unmeasured confounding. We recognize that gender is not a binary construct, although we had to treat it as such given the way data were collected. Further, as HRS combined a range of races/ethnicities into the Other race/ethnicity category, we were not able to investigate the influence of race/ethnic identities and associated racism and cultural caste systems. These limitations underscore the challenges of controlling for demographics and the need for improving methods for measuring and accounting for systemic oppressions such as structural racism in research 52 , 53 . By exploring population-level associations, we conflated individual experiences, so future research should focus on the needs of different groups who may experience distinctive stressors and outcomes. Access to leisure, the quality of leisure time, and the availability of culturally meaningful activities also differ across groups.

We found evidence for positive associations between some domains of leisure engagement, particularly physical and creative activities, and many (but not all) age-related processes at the functional and phenotypic levels. Given that relationships were independent of a range of demographic, socioeconomic, and neighborhood factors, physical and creative activities may influence these important aging metrics. Older adults should be supported and encouraged to incorporate physical and creative activities into their everyday lives. If inequalities in leisure engagement 6 , 7 can be reduced, this could lead to more equitable experiences of aging among older adults 54 . Internationally, policymakers are implementing systems to promote social equity and reduce inequalities by enabling practitioners to connect older adults to leisure activities through social prescribing. Our findings demonstrate the potential benefits of these systems, as they could reduce age-related decline and help older adults stay functionally independent for longer. Our findings thus support previous evidence that leisure engagement is evolutionarily beneficial, relevant to humans and their health, and should be used to understand experiences of aging.

Ethical approval

This research complies with all relevant ethical regulations. All participants gave informed consent, and this study has approval from the University of Florida (IRB201901792) and the University College London Research Ethics Committee (project 18839/001). HRS offers financial payments as tokens of appreciation to respondents for participating, but these were not intended as compensation.

Participants were drawn from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a nationally representative study of more than 37,000 individuals over the age of 50 in the US 55 . The Health and Retirement Study (HRS) was initiated by the National Institute on Aging and conducted by the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan to track the Baby Boom generation’s transition from work to retirement. The initial HRS cohort was interviewed for the first time in 1992 and followed up every two years, with other studies and younger cohorts merged with the initial sample. Together, these studies create a fully representative sample of individuals over the age of 50 in the United States. Further details on study design are reported elsewhere 55 . In this study, we combined seven HRS public datasets (HRS 2018 Tracker Final Release [V1.0], RAND HRS Longitudinal File 2018 [V1]; RAND HRS Detailed Imputations File 2018 [V1]; 2008 RAND HRS Fat File [V3A]; 2010 RAND HRS Fat File [V5F]; 2016 RAND HRS Fat File [V2B]; 2018 RAND HRS Fat File [V2A]). Raw data are available from HRS ( https://hrsdata.isr.umich.edu/data-products/public-survey-data ) and the RAND Center for the Study of Aging ( https://hrsdata.isr.umich.edu/data-products/rand ).

At each wave of HRS, a rotating random 50% subsample of participants were invited to an enhanced interview and given a leave-behind Psychosocial and Lifestyle Questionnaire to return by mail, which included questions on leisure engagement 56 . Participants were eligible to complete this psychosocial questionnaire in 2008 or 2010, which we have combined to form the baseline of our study. In 2008, 8296 participants were invited to complete this questionnaire, and 7073 (85%) returned it. In 2010, 11,213 were eligible, and 8332 (74%) participated. Of the 15,405 participants who participated at baseline, 10,215 also participated in the HRS core survey at our follow-up eight years later (2016/2018) and were thus eligible for inclusion in our study. Of these, 8893 participants had complete data on leisure engagement, and 8771 also participated in the previous wave (in which health behavior covariates were measured), forming our final analytical sample for outcomes measured in the core survey (Table  S1 ). Three additional limitations reduced our sample size further for some outcomes: completion of enhanced physical assessments at follow-up ( n  = 7940), aged 65 and over at follow-up ( n  = 4643), and both restrictions combined ( n  = 4131).

Leisure engagement

The HRS Social Engagement scale was measured in the psychosocial questionnaire at baseline 56 . This scale included 18 consistent items across 2008 and 2010, three of which were excluded from this study (caring for sick or disabled adults, praying privately, using a computer for email, internet, or other tasks) as they were not typical leisure activities. This left 15 activities, which have previously been categorized into four domains: (a) physical activities (sport/exercise, walking), (b) creative activities (gardening, baking/cooking, needlework, and hobbies), (c) cognitive activities (reading, word games, cards or other games, and writing), and (d) community activities (volunteering, charity work, educational courses, sports or social clubs, non-religious organizations) 28 . Participants reported how frequently they engaged in each activity on a seven-point scale, from never (0) to daily (6). We created an index for each domain, averaging the frequency of engagement in all activities within that domain.

Experiences of aging

All outcomes were measured at baseline (2008/2010) and eight years later (2016/2018). The subsample in which each outcome was measured is detailed in Table  S1 .

Daily functioning

Included the number of difficulties with ADLs (ranging from 0 to 5; from bathing, eating, dressing, walking across a room, and getting in or out of bed), the number of difficulties with IADLs (ranging from 0 to 5; from using a telephone, taking medication, handling money, shopping, and preparing meals), and number of difficulties with mobility, from walking one block, several blocks, and across a room, jogging one mile, and reaching/extending arms up (0, 1, 2, 3, 4 or more).

Physical fitness

Included three self-reported indices, measured as the number of activities with which participants did not have problems within: strength (ranging from 0-3; stooping, kneeling or crouching, pushing or pulling a large object, lifting or carrying weights over ten pounds [like a heavy bag of groceries]), gross motor function (ranging from 0 to 4; walking one block, walking across a room, getting in or out of bed, bathing), and fine motor function (ranging from 0 to 3; picking up a dime, eating, dressing). On each of these outcomes, higher scores indicate better physical fitness. Participants aged 65 and over self-reported whether they had fallen down in the last two years (yes, no; falls). We also included four objective measures of physical fitness, assessed during the enhanced face-to-face HRS interview 57 . Lung function was measured with peak expiratory flow using a Mini-Wright Peak Flow Meter, taken as the average of three measures each 30 s apart. Grip strength was measured with a pistol hand grip device (Smedley spring-type hand dynamometer), taken as the average of two measures on each hand. Static balance was evaluated with three separate, progressively more difficult stances, with a variable derived to indicate completion of these stances (none, side-by-side only, semi-tandem, tandem). Gait speed was measured in participants aged 65 and over with the timed walk test (time to walk a 98.5-in. course twice), with times reversed so that higher scores indicate faster gait speed.

Heart health

Was measured with systolic and diastolic blood pressure and pulse, all assessed using an Omron HEM-780 Intellisense Automated blood pressure monitor with ComFit cuff on the participant’s left arm, taken as the average of the final two of three measurements 45–60 s apart. Using the American Heart Association guidelines, we categorized systolic blood pressure as normal (less than 120 mm Hg), elevated (120–129 mm Hg), hypertension stage one (130–139 mm Hg), or hypertension stage two (140 mm Hg and above) and diastolic blood pressure as normal or elevated (less than 80 mm Hg), hypertension stage one (80-89 mm Hg), or hypertension stage two (90 mm Hg and above). Models including these measures were adjusted for whether participants took blood pressure medication (yes, no).

Descriptors were body mass index (BMI), calculated using interviewer-recorded weight and height, and waist circumference, measured with a tape measure at the level of the participant’s navel. We categorized BMI using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines as people who were underweight or healthy weight (below 25), overweight (25 to <30), or people with obesity (30 and above). The underweight and healthy weight categories were combined due to the low proportion of participants who were underweight.

Measures were self-reported, including whether participants regularly take prescription medication to help them sleep (yes, no) and how often they feel really rested when they wake up in the morning (most of the time, sometimes, rarely/never).

Long-term physical health problems

Were self-reported as the number of chronic health conditions (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or more; from high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, lung disease, heart disease, stroke, psychiatric problems, arthritis) and the degree of persistent pain experienced (none, mild, moderate, and severe).

Subjective perceptions of health

Included participants’ ratings of their eyesight using glasses or corrective lenses as needed (excellent, very good, good, fair, poor, and blind), hearing (excellent, very good, good, fair, and poor), and perceived difficulty with balance (never, rarely, sometimes, and often).

Covariates were measured in the HRS core survey at baseline (2008/2010). Demographic factors were age (years), gender (men, women), marital status (married [including cohabiting], unmarried [separated, divorced, widowed, never married]), and race/ethnicity (White [including Caucasian], Black [including African American], Other [including American Indian, Alaskan Native, Asian or Pacific Islander, Hispanic, Other]). Socioeconomic factors were educational attainment (less than high school, high school, college, postgraduate), employment status (employed, retired, not working [including unemployed, temporarily laid off, disabled, homemakers]), pension status (yes, no), total household income (US dollars), total assets (US dollars), and household size (count of other household members). Neighborhood factors were self-reported safety (excellent/good, fair/poor), physical disorder (ranging from 1 to 7; rated presence of vandalism, graffiti, rubbish, vacant, deserted houses, and crime), and social cohesion (ranging from 1 to 7; feels part of this area, trusts people, people are friendly, people will help).

Statistical analysis

Using an outcome-wide approach 26 , 27 , we tested the associations between frequency of engagement in each leisure domain (physical, creative, cognitive, and community activities) and aging experiences eight years later in regression models. The type of regression was determined by the outcome; negative binomial regression was used for count outcomes (to deal with overdispersion), linear regression for continuous, logistic regression for binary, and ordered logistic regression for ordinal outcomes. Models included all four leisure domains simultaneously and were adjusted for demographic, socioeconomic, and neighborhood covariates and the baseline measure of the outcome. All analyses of heart health were also adjusted for whether participants were taking blood pressure medication (yes, no). The cross-sectional associations between leisure engagement and each experience of aging at baseline are included in the  Supplementary Materials , along with the unadjusted models.

We accounted for the complex survey design and attrition using probability weights provided by HRS, including either the weight for the psychosocial questionnaire subsample or the physical measures subsample, dependent on how each outcome was measured. For participants with missing data on aging experiences outcomes or covariates, we imputed data using multiple imputations by chained equations (MICE) 58 . We used Poisson, multinomial logistic, ordered logistic, and logistic regression according to variable type, generating 20 imputed data sets (maximum missing data 16%; Table  S2 ). The imputation model included all variables used in analyses and sampling weights. Separate imputation models were run for each subsample (1) core survey, 2) physical measures, 3) aged 65+, and 4) physical measures and aged 65+; Table  S1 ). All analyses were performed using Stata 17 59 .

In sensitivity analyses, we computed E -values as indicators of how robust findings were to potential unmeasured confounding 29 , using the Stata evalue package 60 . We also performed four additional sensitivity analyses. First, we additionally adjusted analyses for health covariates (cognition, depressive symptoms, prescription medication, psychiatric problems, self-rated health measured at baseline) and health behavior covariates (alcohol use and smoking measured at the wave prior to baseline). Second, as there were concerns about potential bias due to controlling for the outcome at baseline, we also repeated the longitudinal adjusted analyses after omitting the baseline outcome measure. Third, we included different levels of leisure engagement (none, weekly, monthly) to provide a more comprehensive picture of the associations with experiences of aging. Finally, due to concerns around reverse causation, we limited the sample to participants without chronic health conditions at baseline.

Reporting summary

Further information on research design is available in the  Nature Portfolio Reporting Summary linked to this article.

Data availability

Raw data are available from HRS ( https://hrsdata.isr.umich.edu/data-products/public-survey-data ) and the RAND Center for the Study of Aging ( https://hrsdata.isr.umich.edu/data-products/rand ). Derived data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, J.K.B., on request.  Source data are provided in this paper.

Code availability

All code for analyses in this study is publicly available online: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/8NBXD .

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Acknowledgements

We thank Shanae Burch, a thought leader on work at the intersections of the arts, equity, and public health in the US, for her comments on this manuscript. We also gratefully acknowledge the contribution of the HRS study participants. HRS is sponsored by the National Institute on Aging (grant number NIA U01AG009740) and is conducted by the University of Michigan. The EpiArts Lab, a National Endowment for the Arts Research Lab at the University of Florida, is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts (1862896-38-C-20; awarded to J.K.S. and D.F.). The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the National Endowment for the Arts Office of Research & Analysis or the National Endowment for the Arts. The National Endowment for the Arts does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information included in this material and is not responsible for any consequences of its use. The EpiArts Lab is also supported by Americans for the Arts, Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Dharma Endowment Foundation, and the Pabst Steinmetz Foundation (all awarded to J.K.S. and D.F.). D.F. is also supported by the Wellcome Trust (205407/Z/16/Z; D.F.).

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Bone, J.K., Bu, F., Sonke, J.K. et al. Leisure engagement in older age is related to objective and subjective experiences of aging. Nat Commun 15 , 1499 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-45877-w

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Leisure: Definitions, Trends, and Policy Implications

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Economic theories predict that with modernity and with the increase in standards of living, individuals will aspire for more leisure. However, the results of empirical studies which examined period trends in leisure time across developed countries do not confirm this presumption. The current study asks: If changes in leisure stem from ideational changes among different generations, will trends in leisure look different if examined across cohorts, or if measured differently? By integrating theoretical definitions of leisure based on literatures in economics, sociology, and psychology, this research derives three main macro-level empirical measures of leisure from various sources. These measures are used to analyze the contribution of population turnover to changes in the quantity of leisure, in developed countries, using linear regression decomposition method. Our results show an almost unequivocal increase in leisure across cohorts, across 159 country-periods, suggesting that new policies supporting domestic consumption are warranted.

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Macro-level indicators are provided by age groups according to the following: US time-use data—15–24, 25–34, 35–44, 45–54, 55–64, 65–74; Eurostat’s time-use data—15–19, 20–24, 25–44, 45–64, 65–74; US Expenditures data—15–24, 25–34, 35–44, 45–54, 55–64, 65–74, 75–84; Eurostat’s expenditures data—14–29, 30–44, 45–59, 60–74.

The percent of change explained by cohort replacement is calculated by dividing the cohort replacement effect by the total expected change.

The percent recovered due to cohort replacement is calculated by dividing the cohort replacement effect by the inverse value of the “within cohort change.”.

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Acknowledgements

I gratefully acknowledge the excellent comments and advices received from Barbara S. Okun (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Anat Gofen (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Brienna Perelli-Harris (University of Southampton), and Michaela Kreyenfeld (Hertie School of Governance) at the early stages of this research. I also gratefully acknowledge the excellent research assistance of Alon Pertzikovitz.

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Raz-Yurovich, L. Leisure: Definitions, Trends, and Policy Implications. Popul Res Policy Rev 41 , 981–1019 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-021-09675-2

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EDITORIAL article

Editorial: investigating the impact of current issues on leisure, tourism, and hospitality in psychological science.

• 1 Department of Management, College of Business, Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
• 2 Department of Business Administration, School of Business Administration, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece
• 3 National Chiayi University and Tainan University of Technology, Tainan, Taiwan

Editorial on the Research Topic Investigating the Impact of Current Issues on Leisure, Tourism, and Hospitality in Psychological Science

As one of the world's most dynamic, fast-changing, and intense industries, tourism remains the primary engine of economic growth and sustainability generating a vast number of employment opportunities leading to poverty alleviation ( Fotiadis et al., 2019a ). Current challenges occurring from the Covid-19 pandemic indicate that the tourism and hospitality sectors are highly sensitive to changes and are crucial for the global economy ( Polyzos et al., 2020 ; Shehzad et al., 2020 ). Psychological impacts of financial distress are a significant field of study. Usually, a financial crisis will create direct or indirect micro and macro impacts in different countries and environments.

The tourism industry is a complex environment comprising different sectors with their complex environments. Thereby, any change, be it a minor or major one, may have a significantly positive or negative impact on stakeholders. For that reason, community-based tourism is an emerging field, and growing numbers of studies are examining resident's behaviors and how development can be beneficial—or not—for a local community ( Knez and Eliasson, 2017 ). Local communities tend to be more active when destination leadership is stable and innovative ( Bichler, 2019 ). As Farmaki (2021) designates, special care should be used in post-crisis experiences, especially for the local community, as small local communities are unable to react easily to significant changes ( Fotiadis et al., 2019b ).

In recent years, the rise of medical tourism is an example that reshapes the tourism industry based on the fast-growing segments of retired tourists with their expectations regarding the provision and delivery of tourism products and services. As Garcia-Garzon et al. (2016) mention, medical travel has grown significantly during recent years, supporting new markets and advancing medical care. As expected, the recent pandemic transforms everything we knew so far and created a new tourism model where new types of medical tourism development are needed.

This special issue seeks to shed light on the current academic and practical perspectives within the leisure, tourism, and hospitality sectors. More so, this special issue investigates contemporary concerns relative to leisure, tourism, and hospitality to develop new theoretical constructs and perspectives, and stimulate dialogues in this respect while trying to strike a balance between theory and application. In this end, this special issue invited offerings from various disciplines in aiming to serve as a forum through which these various disciplines may interact and thereby expand the body of literature on leisure, tourism and hospitality, and social science at large. The relationship between psychological science and new methods used in the tourism industry, such as neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and big data analysis, can offer better insights into the new era tourism and hospitality industry.

As such, we briefly present the papers included in this issue.

The first paper, entitled “How to promote ethnic village residents' behavior participating in tourism poverty alleviation: A tourism empowerment perspective,” is authored by Yang et al. . This study examines tourism empowerment's effect on local village inhabitants' behaviors contributing to tourism poverty mitigation in Zenlei Village in Sandu County of Guizhou Province in China. The authors develop four hypotheses related to the “Tourism Empowerment and Participation Behavior” subtheme. Then they examine four hypotheses in the mediating role of participation willingness in relation to tourism empowerment and participation behavior. Furthermore, they assess four more hypotheses to examine the moderating role of participation ability regarding tourism empowerment and participation behavior. As the results delineate, tourism empowerment has a significant interrelation with participation behavior, while there is a mediating effect among participation willingness, tourism empowerment, and participation behavior. Additionally, it is demonstrated that a strong positive correlation exists among tourism psychological empowerment and participation willingness when residents' participation ability is high and weak when it is low.

The second paper is titled “Evaluation of self-assessed state of health and vitamin D knowledge in Emirati and international female students in United Arab Emirates (UAE)” and is authored by Abboud et al. . In this paper, the authors compare knowledge about vitamin D and the perceived state of health in Emirati and international female tourism students in Dubai, UAE. Their study focuses on a niche market in the middle east, as they are exploring female Emiratis and international female tourists. Their research questions explore how different dietary variables, such as assessed levels of supplementation, diet, and UV exposure, can affect the perceived state of health. In addition, they evaluated the participants' self-assessed state of health in terms of vitamin D testing and general well-being indicators. As their results signify, there is an exceedingly low knowledge about the association of vitamin D deficiency and most diseases. Further, Emirati students reported using Vitamin D supplements much more than the international students.

The third paper deals with “Resident's perspective on developing community-based tourism—A qualitative study of Muen Ngoen Kong community, Chiang Mai, Thailand,” authored by Lo and Janta . This study examines the benefits and challenges of Community-Based Tourism (CBT) and solutions to address identified shortcomings by studying the Muen Ngoen Kong community in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Focusing on the concept of CBT, the importance of CBT, and CBT development's objectives, the researchers developed three research questions. The first one explores the challenges a community faces concerning CBT. The second one investigates benefits that Support CBT Development in the Community, while the third suggests solutions to solve the challenges. Results designate that there are many problems with how CBT is implemented. The most significant problems seem to be resource ownership, benefit leaking, financial issues, and limited community participation.

The fourth paper is titled “Emirati adults have a higher overall knowledge on vitamin D compared to Tourists” and is authored by Saleh et al. . This research examines the level of knowledge of vitamin D, calcium, and physical activity among Emirati and tourist adults in Abu Dhabi. It is a cross-sectional study undertaken in three different malls in Abu Dhabi, where the retail and hospitality sectors are well-developed and include Emirati and tourist patrons. Another research question investigates if there are demographic differences in perceptions. Emirati participants showed a higher overall vitamin D knowledge than their tourist counterparts. Both groups indicated a low/medium level of knowledge regarding physical activity, calcium and vitamin D supplements.

The fifth research paper is a brief report titled “Promises and hurdles of medical tourism development in the russian federation,” where Daykhes et al. are the authors of this study. The primary purpose of this research was to identify factors affecting the development of medical tourism in Russia and those factors that impede this area's development using the expert assessment method. The authors surveyed the complex relationships that might exist between the health expenditure landscape and medical tourism. Another investigation area was to determine the main issues that impede the medical tourism field in Russia and suggest possible solutions for further development. They develop 10 research questions regarding the perception of foreign medical tourists, and their results suggest nine improvements for further progressing the industry in Russia.

The next study deals with the topic “Exploring consumers' behavior for choosing sustainable food,” authored by Hsu et al. . In their study, the authors explore consumers' interests in buying sustainable food in Taiwan. The study focused on interest instead of intention or behavior to better understand the formation of interest. For their study, the authors develop four hypotheses. The first one is examining the relationship between knowledge and interest in buying sustainable food. The second examines friends' support regarding the level of interest, while the third addresses the relationship between price and interest. In the final hypothesis, they explore health incentives and levels of interest. The results indicate that the first three hypotheses were supported while the fourth was not.

Research paper number seven is titled “Behavioral model of middle-aged and seniors for bicycle tourism.” The authors of this study are Lin et al. . Their study seeks to determine the behavioral tendency of the middle-aged and seniors in bicycle tourism at environmentally protected scenic areas and its relevant influence factors. The authors use the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and develop six hypotheses. The first three hypotheses examine the relationship among sports habits and subjective norms, perceived behaviors, and respondents' attitudes toward biking. The other three examine the association of respondent's behavioral intentions and attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behaviors. A structural equation model was developed, and each hypothesis was accepted.

The next paper is entitled “A study on the place attachment of golf club members,” authored by Chen et al. . In this paper, the authors explore the memberships of golf clubs in Taiwan's central region and determine whether golfers' involvement in activities affects the degree of place attachment. They also add two factors of activity experience and experience value to develop a theoretical framework. This theoretical model was based on six hypotheses. The first two were related to how local attachment and activity experience are affected by involvement. The other four hypotheses identified significant relationships among activity experience, experience value, activity involvement, and local attachment. As their outcomes reveal, all hypotheses were supported except for the last one.

The last paper of this special issue is entitled “Examining ownership equity as a psychological factor on tourism business failure forecasting,” authored by Korol and Spyridou . This paper examines ownership equity as a predictor of future business failure within the tourism and hospitality sectors. This study's main goals were to examine which ratios are the most important in a model forecasting failure for tourism businesses. The authors sought to determine if, in a strict financial model, there exist ratios that can be associated from a psychological point of view. Using an expert-driven approach, they demonstrated that experts' judgment is an appropriate way to develop a bankruptcy prediction model. Finally, they conclude that the MAN ratio (total percentage of equity ownership by company directors), which is often considered an important psychological factor, was the fourth most important ratio for developing a bankruptcy model.

Author Contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

In closing this editorial, we want to mention that without the thought-provoking papers and the hospitality of the Frontiers in Psychology editors and editorial board, it would have been daunting or even impossible to prepare and create this special issue. Our sincere thanks also to all the reviewers for their valuable recommendations and their critical academic efforts.

Bichler, B. F. (2019). Designing tourism governance: the role of local residents. J. Destin. Market. Manage. 100389. doi: 10.1016/j.jdmm.2019.100389

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Farmaki, A. (2021). Memory and forgetfulness in tourism crisis research. Tour. Manage. 83:104210. doi: 10.1016/j.tourman.2020.104210

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Fotiadis, A., Abdulrahman, K., and Spyridou, A. (2019a). The mediating role of psychological autonomy, competence, and relatedness on work-life balance and well-being. Front. Psychol. 10:1267. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01267

Fotiadis, A., Nuryyev, G., Achyldurdyyeva, J., and Spyridou, A. (2019b). The impact of EU sponsorship, size, and geographic characteristics on rural tourism development. Sustainability 11:2375. doi: 10.3390/su11082375

Garcia-Garzon, E., Zhukovsky, P., Haller, E., Plakolm, S., Fink, D., Petrova, D., et al. (2016). Multilevel modeling and policy development: guidelines and applications to medical travel. Front. Psychol. 7:752. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00752

Knez, I., and Eliasson, I. (2017). Relationships between personal and collective place identity and well-being in mountain communities. Front. Psychol . 8:79. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00079

Polyzos, S., Samitas, A., and Spyridou, A. E. (2020). Tourism demand and the COVID-19 pandemic: an LSTM approach. Tour. Recreat. Res. 1–13. doi: 10.1080/02508281.2020.1777053

Shehzad, K., Xiaoxing, L., Arif, M., Rehman, K. U., and Ilyas, M. (2020). Investigating the psychology of financial markets during COVID-19 Era: a case study of the US and European Markets. Front. Psychol. 11:1924. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01924

Keywords: current issues, tourism, hospitality, psychology, leisure

Citation: Fotiadis AK, Vasilliadis CA and Huan T-C (2020) Editorial: Investigating the Impact of Current Issues on Leisure, Tourism, and Hospitality in Psychological Science. Front. Psychol. 11:596868. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.596868

Received: 20 August 2020; Accepted: 26 October 2020; Published: 27 November 2020.

Edited and reviewed by: Monica Gomez-Suárez , Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain

Copyright © 2020 Fotiadis, Vasilliadis and Huan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Tzung-Cheng Huan, tchuan@mail.ncyu.edu.tw

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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The impact of leisure activities on older adults’ cognitive function, physical function, and mental health

Giovanni sala.

1 Institute for Comprehensive Medical Science, Fujita Health University, Toyoake, Japan

Daniela Jopp

2 Institute of Psychology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

Fernand Gobet

3 Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, United Kingdom

Madoka Ogawa

4 Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Tokyo, Japan

Yoshiko Ishioka

5 Graduate School of Science and Technology, Keio University, Yokohama, Japan

Yukie Masui

Hiroki inagaki, takeshi nakagawa.

6 National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, Aichi, Japan

Saori Yasumoto

7 Graduate School of Human Sciences, University of Osaka, Osaka, Japan

Tatsuro Ishizaki

Yasumichi arai.

8 Center for Supercentenarian Medical Research, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan

Kazunori Ikebe

9 Graduate School of Dentistry, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan

10 Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan

Yasuyuki Gondo

Associated data.

According to the approval by the Institutional Review Board of Osaka University Graduate School of Dentistry (approval number H22-E9), our dataset cannot be made available for others. If the other researcher requests to use our dataset, he/she should be approved as a co-researcher by our IRB. If someone requires to use the dataset, please contact the data access committee at first: pj.ca.u-akaso.suh@cinos . In order to reproduce the main models, we provide the covariance matrices and R codes ( https://osf.io/csvwt/ ).

Engagement in leisure activities has been claimed to be highly beneficial in the elderly. Practicing such activities is supposed to help older adults to preserve cognitive function, physical function, and mental health, and thus to contribute to successful aging. We used structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze the impact of leisure activities on these constructs in a large sample of Japanese older adults ( N = 809; age range 72–74). The model exhibited an excellent fit (CFI = 1); engaging in leisure activities was positively associated with all the three successful aging indicators. These findings corroborate previous research carried out in Western countries and extend its validity to the population of Eastern older adults. Albeit correlational in nature, these results suggest that active engagement in leisure activities can help older adults to maintain cognitive, physical, and mental health. Future research will clarify whether there is a causal relationship between engagement in leisure activities and successful aging.

Introduction

Leisure activities (hereafter LA) can be defined as activities people engage in during free time [ 1 ]. Engagement in LAs has been found to be positively associated with cognitive function, physical function, and mental health in late adulthood and in the elderly. The possible protective effects of LA engagement against aging-related decline have thus been the object of investigation in the last two decades.

Of these three outcomes, preserved cognitive function has received most attention and the link with LA engagement in the elderly is well established [ 2 – 5 ]. Three possible explanations have been proposed for the observed relationship between cognitive function and LA engagement. First, practicing mentally challenging activities (e.g., music, board games, video games, and brain training) may enhance overall cognitive function [ 6 ]. However, this idea has received little adequate empirical support [ 7 – 9 ] in the general population. Second, people exhibiting superior overall cognitive function may be more likely to engage in LAs that are cognitive demanding. This hypothesis has been corroborated by numerous studies in the field of chess and music [ 10 , 11 ]. Finally, engaging in intellectually demanding LAs may slow down cognitive decline. This idea relies on the so-called “use it or lose it” hypothesis according to which engaging in intellectually demanding activities helps to preserve cognitive function in the elderly [ 12 , 13 ]. This hypothesis has received some support by studies implementing dual-change approaches to test for causality between LA engagement and preserved cognitive function [ 14 , 15 ].

Compared to the link between LA engagement and cognitive function, the impact of LA engagement on physical function has been less studied [ 16 ]. Most research has focused on the adverse effects of illness and injuries on LA engagement. Reduced LA engagement has, in turn, detrimental effects on indicators of mental health such as well-being and life satisfaction [ 17 ]. The field has thus paid more attention to how physical function influences LA engagement rather than vice-versa. Another line of research has examined the effects of physical activity and LAs (as independent variables) on cognitive function [ 12 , 18 ].

Finally, LA engagement seems to be related to mental health as well. Mental health aspects such as well-being and life satisfaction have been found to positively correlate with LA engagement in several studies (for a review, see [ 17 ]). Studies implementing a longitudinal design have confirmed these findings [ 19 ]. Nonetheless, the amount of robust experimental evidence is still modest [ 20 ].

Considering its positive effects for key dimensions of functioning in older age, LA engagement seems to have an important role for successful aging . In their seminal article, Rowe and Kahn [ 21 ] introduced the concept of successful aging in opposition to usual aging . While usual aging emphasizes the non-pathological aging (e.g., absence of disease), successful aging captures an optimal aging process. Successful aging is, according to Rowe and Kahn, best characterized by the concurrent presence of three dimensions, namely high cognitive and physical function, low probability of disease and disability, and active engagement in life. The latter captures the involvement in productive and social activities, giving those activities a similar importance as health and functioning for successful aging. The importance of activities for successful aging has also been stressed very early on in other seminal theories, including activity theory by Havighurst, Neugarten, and Tobin [ 22 ]. Such more multidimensional conceptualizations of successful aging have resulted in complementing prior approaches by including mental-health related dimensions such as well-being [ 17 , 23 – 25 ]. Here, we investigate the relationship between engagement in LAs and fundamental dimensions of successful aging such as cognitive function, physical function, and mental health.

The present investigation

This study examines the impact of engagement in LAs on cognitive function, physical function, and mental health in a group ( N = 809) of Japanese older adults. As most of the studies in the field are based on samples from Western countries (e.g., US and Germany), little is known about this issue in non-Western countries. The present study aims to fill this gap by adding new information from a country of the Far East (i.e., Japan). Moreover, prior studies usually suffer from limitations such as relying on subjective measures of cognitive and physical function [ 26 , 27 ] and dichotomization of continuous variables [ 27 , 28 ]. Also, the use of multiple-indicator latent variables, which is necessary to reduce measurement error and, hence, produce more reliable estimates, has been sporadic [ 2 ]. The present study employs objective measures of functioning as well as multiple indicators allowing complex modeling and controls for measurement error.

Furthermore, previous studies of both Western and Eastern populations have focused on the association between LA engagement and other components of successful aging (e.g., cognitive function) one at a time. By contrast, here we study the relationship between LA engagement and cognitive function, physical function, and mental health in a single model. This approach allows us to examine not only the direct effects of LA engagement on indicators of successful aging, but also how cognitive function, physical function, and mental health influences each other. Recent research into the field has in fact shown that mutual relationships occur between cognitive function, physical function, and mental health [ 17 , 29 – 31 ]. However, these bi-directional effects have never been studied in relationship with LA engagement.

We aim to address the above limitations with Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). An SEM model allows us to analyze the impact of LA engagement on all the variables of interest–cognitive function, physical function, and mental health–simultaneously (i.e., in a single SEM model). Such a model rules out potential confounds (e.g., Type I error due to a missing covariate) and takes into account the bidirectional paths between the endogenous latent variables. This way, the model estimates the unique (i.e., not confounded by other correlated variables) impact of LA engagement on the other dimensions of successful aging. To the best of our knowledge, no such study has been carried out in this field so far. Also, SEM models can estimate latent constructs of interest (i.e., cognitive function, physical function, and mental health), which are psychometrically more precise and reliable than observed indicators (i.e., test and questionnaires scores). Finally, while the studies in the field have usually assessed physical function with self-report questionnaires [ 19 ], the indicators we use are objective measures.

To sum up, the study aims (a) to test the previous claims about the relationship between LA engagement and successful aging by employing a more robust and comprehensive modeling approach; (b) to extend the current empirical evidence–which is mostly on cognitive function–by examining the impact of LA engagement on less studied dimensions of successful aging such as physical function and mental health; (c) to quantify both direct and indirect effects of LA engagement; and (d) to extend the relatively small amount of data concerning the role played by LA engagement in the successful aging dimensions of Eastern populations.

Materials and methods

Participants.

The study included a total of 809 Japanese participants (381 men and 428 women). The age range was 72 to 74. The data were retrieved from the second wave of the Septuagenarians, Octogenarians, Nonagenarians Investigation with Centenarians (SONIC) survey. These particular study cohort and wave were selected because they reported the most extensive and detailed LA-engagement questionnaire.

The SONIC is an ongoing survey whose main purpose is to identify the correlates of healthy aging. It includes both urban and rural (ratio 2:1) community-dwelling older adults. The participants were recruited from residential registries and contacted by postal mail. They gave their informed consent on site prior to starting the survey. For all the details about the SONIC survey, see [ 32 ].

Leisure-activity (LA) engagement

This questionnaire included 158 yes/no items regarding the participant’s engagement in as many activities. The questionnaire was based on the questionnaires presented in Karp et al. and Jopp and Hertzog’s studies [ 4 , 33 ], and it was extended by adding common activities among Japanese older adults (e.g., playing shogi, practicing tai chi, and going to a public bath [onsen]). The questionnaire showed good internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = .88). The list of the activities is reported in the Supplemental materials available online. A latent factor representing LA engagement was extracted from the questionnaire with the ltm R package and used in the analyses [ 34 ].

Cognitive function

Three measures of cognitive ability were used to estimate a latent variable representing cognitive function: the Japanese version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA-J; [ 35 ]); the number series completion task from the Brief Test of Adult Cognition by Telephone as a measure for reasoning skills [ 36 ]; and the recall subtest of the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale (ADAS; [ 37 ]). For all tests, a specific score was obtained, with higher values indicating higher capacity.

Physical function

Two measures of physical function from the Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB; [ 38 ]) were administered: the participants’ gait speed and chair stand test. For both tests, performance indicators were captured in seconds, with fewer seconds to complete the task indicating better health functioning. The third measure was the 10-second open-close stepping test [ 39 ], for which a smaller number of steps to complete the task indicated better functional health.

Mental health

Three measures of mental health were administered: the Japanese versions of the WHO-5 well-being index questionnaire [ 40 ], positive section of the Positive and Negative Affect Scales (PANAS; [ 41 ]), and Satisfaction With Life Scale [ 42 ]. In all the indicators, higher numbers indicate better mental health.

We included gender (male, female), education and wealth as covariates to control for their potential effect on LA engagement or its link to the successful aging outcomes. Education consisted of three levels indicating the highest degree achieved by the participant (1 = primary/middle school, 2 = high school, and 3 = university/college education). Wealth described the participant’s economic situation and included five levels (from 1 = difficult economic situation to 5 = very good economic situation). These two variables were added to assure that the effect of LA engagement was not confounded with SES-related variables such as education and wealth status. Finally, gender was used as a grouping variable to test for measurement invariance across males and females. The rationale of this choice is that SES variables (such as education and wealth) may not always be equally good predictors of the constructs of interests between males and females. For example, it is reasonable to suppose that, in the fifties, intellectually gifted males were more likely to advance in their studies than equally intellectually gifted females.

Data preparation and analysis

Variables transformation and outlier treatment.

All the continuous variables were normalized and standardized. Normalization reduces the inflation of absolute measures of fit (e.g., χ 2 ) and incidence of outliers in the dataset. Also, normalization tends to linearize the relationship among multiple measures of the same construct [ 43 ], and thus reduces biases due to potential non-linear relationships between indicators. The normalization was run with the bestNormalize R package [ 44 ].

The normalized variables were inspected for possible outliers. A value was considered as an outlier if it fell outside of the following range [Q1–2.2*IQR; Q3 + 2.2*IQR], where Q1, Q3, and IQR were the first quartile, the third quartile, and the interquartile range of the variable, respectively [ 45 ]. Only two outliers were detected (both in the MoCA-J scores) and winsorized.

Power calculation

The statistical power for not-close fit hypothesis testing was estimated [ 43 ]. Assuming the null RMSEA = .050, alternative RMSEA = .010, and α = .050, the statistical power was very high (> 99%). The number of participants recruited was thus more than adequate for global fit testing and rejection of false models. These analyses were run with the semTools R package [ 46 ].

SEM modeling

The lavaan R package [ 47 ] was used to run all the SEM models. An equality constraint between two factors (physical function and mental health) was added to identify the models. We built one model including all the variables. LA engagement, subjective wealth, and education were predictors of the three latent variables cognition, physical function, and mental health in the regression equations. Also, since some studies have provided evidence of a bidirectional relationship between physical function, cognitive function, and mental health [ 17 , 29 , 30 ], feedback loops were included between the latent variables. Due to the inclusion of two ordinal variables (education and subjective wealth), we chose the unweighted weighted least squares estimator (ULS). (An additional set of analyses was carried out with an alternative estimator [WLSM] that does not assume multivariate normality.) Gender was used for multiple-group analysis.

The descriptive statistics (untransformed means and standard deviations) are reported in Table 1 .

The SEM model in which LA engagement predicted cognitive function, physical function, and mental health as concurrent successful aging outcomes, and controlling for SES (i.e., education and wealth), proved to have an excellent fit: χ 2 (79) = 70.34, RMSEA = 0.000, SMRM = 0.037, CFI = 1.000. Comparative fit testing showed that this model outperformed the homologous model without the grouping variable (i.e., gender; CFI = 1.000). Measurement invariance analysis showed that the weak (metric) invariance was not rejected ( p = .356). The strong (i.e., scalar) invariance hypothesis was rejected ( p < .001), suggesting the presence of a differential additive response style [ 43 ] between genders. The model structure is in Fig 1 .

The squares and rectangles represent observed variables. The rectangles represent indicators for the latent variables (circles). The arrows represent the paths.

The latent variables and regression coefficients are summarized in Table 2 . LA engagement was positively related to all the latent factors in both male and female participants (all p s ≤ .003). The size of the effects was moderate (Std.Est ranging between 0.185 and 0.306; Table 2 ), yet comparable or even superior to the one of education and wealth. Also, the results showed a statistically significant reciprocal effect between cognitive function and physical function (Std.Est ranging between 0.113 and 0.201). No significant effect was observed between mental health and physical function or cognitive function. Finally, no meaningful difference was observed with the WLSM estimator (see the OSF link). Fig 2 highlights the statistically significant paths in the SEM model.

The numbers indicate the standardized path coefficients in males and females, respectively. Non-significant paths in either males or females and the indicators of the latent variables (all significant) are omitted for the sake of clarity.

Note . Estimate = unstandardized path coefficient; Std.Err = standard error; p -value = significance level; Std.Est = standardized path coefficient.

a An equality constraint was applied to identify the model.

This paper quantified the impact of LA engagement on measures of successful aging including cognitive function, physical function, and mental health in a sample of Japanese older adults. LA engagement appears to be positively related to all these three constructs in both men and women (all p s ≤ .003). The implementation of a comprehensive SEM model allowing to consider different successful aging indicators concurrently, the excellent goodness of fit, the high statistical power, and the implementation of latent constructs based on tasks measuring objective performance (cognitive function and physical function) and reliable self-reported questionnaires (mental health) make the findings of the present study more reliable than most of previous research.

Substantive findings

Overall, the present results corroborate the idea that LA engagement contributes to explaining the individual differences in cognitive function, physical function, and mental health. LA engagement was positively associated with successful aging indicators. The results are in line with the “use it or lose it” theoretical framework and previous findings in Western populations [ 3 , 13 , 48 ]. Thus, the findings of the present study support the position that leading an active lifestyle, here assessed by engagement in leisure activities, is a universal and culture-independent means contributing to successful aging, invariant across different countries and cultures.

Inspection of the regression standardized path coefficients (Std.Est column in the Table 2 ) indicates that the impact of LA engagement on the three latent variables is statistically significant and comparable (or even superior; range of Std.Est 0.185–0.306) to the one exerted by education and self-perceived wealth. Furthermore, the impact of LA engagement is systematically superior to the one exerted by the three endogenous variables on each other (range -0.096–0.201). Nonetheless, the size of these effects is somewhat smaller than the ones reported in those few studies implementing an SEM approach (e.g., 0.490; [ 3 ]). This discrepancy is probably due to the inclusion of three endogenous latent variables connected to each other with feedback loops in a single non-recursive model. Such a model controls for the potential confounding effects of one latent variable on the others. Part of the variance that it would be intercepted by LA engagement is instead absorbed by the paths connecting the three latent variables. Simply put, the model controls, for example, that the positive relationship between LA engagement and cognitive function does not only stem from better mental health or physical function. That being said, overall, LA engagement appears to contribute significantly to explaining unique variance in individual differences in important aspects of successful aging.

Some indirect effects were observed for LA engagement, specifically when considering cognitive and physical function. In particular, cognitive function and physical function influenced each other in a feedback loop, which supports recent evidence showing that the relationship between cognition and physical health is bidirectional [ 29 , 30 ]. LA engagement thus seems to exert an indirect effect on cognitive function mediated by physical function and vice versa. On this regard, the benefits of physical activity on cognitive function can be attributed to an ameliorated overall health condition (e.g., brain oxygenation and stimulation of neurogenesis [ 49 ]). Why better cognition should lead to improved physical health is less obvious. A possible explanatory mechanism could be an overall better self-regulation enabling the participant to be more physically active [ 29 ]. However, due to the correlational nature of the present study, no causal inference in either direction can be made and, thus, none of these hypotheses can be tested.

By contrast, mental health was not associated with either of the other two latent variables. In particular, the absence of any link between physical function and mental health appears to contradict previous findings in the field [ 17 , 50 ]. Possibly, this discrepancy is explained by the use of subjective measures of physical function in prior studies. In fact, while self-reported measures of physical function and mental health may reflect individuals’ perception of their overall health condition, objective measures of physical function may not be correlated with subjective measures of mental health. It is further of note that we used exclusively balance and gait measures as indicators of physical function, which may also have contributed to the lack of relation between our physical and mental health latent construct. That being said, the topic is certainly worth of further investigation.

Finally, there is no clear evidence that the effect of LA engagement on the three latent constructs differed between males and females. The relevant standardized path coefficients were relatively homogeneous when comparing the patterns across genders. A notable difference between the models for males and females was, however, the amount of explained variance, which was nearly twice as large in males compared to females. This is probably because the covariates were associated with greater factor loadings in males than in females. Basically, considering gender through multi-group testing improved the goodness of fit but had no notable impact on the relationship between LA engagement and the endogenous variables (i.e., cognitive function, physical function, and mental health).

Recommendations for future research

In this study, we have considered LA engagement as a single trait. This assumption is upheld by the high internal consistency of our LA questionnaire (Cronbach’s α = .88) and is in line with substantial findings in the field [ 3 ]. Nonetheless, it is possible that engagement in particular types of activities (e.g., playing strategy games, technology use) is more strongly linked to specific constructs such as cognitive function [ 10 , 11 , 33 , 48 ]. In future studies, it is thus recommendable to test whether overall LA engagement subsumes specific types of activities impacting differently on the examined constructs, or whether specific activities are more important for certain successful aging aspects than others. The main drawback of this approach is that requires larger sample sizes than the ones usually included in surveys. Reducing the number of activities in the questionnaire is an alternative [ 2 ] but it has the serious shortcoming of decreasing the overall reliability of the measure. In fact, some individuals may practice relatively unusual LAs that would be necessarily excluded in a shorter questionnaire.

Another point of interest is the frequency of LA engagement. The sheer number of activities practiced by older adults is certainly a good proxy for their engagement in LA, but it is not necessarily the best possible one. How often an activity is practiced may play a significant role too. A further improvement may thus be, for instance, the use of a Likert scale to assess the frequency with which the participants engage in the activities they practice [ 3 , 33 ]. It is worth noting, however, that including frequency may not meaningfully enhance the predictive power of the measure. In fact, previous research suggests that most health benefits of an active life-style in the elderly occur after only a moderate amount of engagement [ 51 ].

Finally, a fundamental caveat needs to be mentioned. Our analysis is correlational in nature, and thus cannot establish any direction of causality between LA engagement and measures of successful aging. In our opinion, there are three possible explanations for our results: (a) LA engagement causes improvements in cognitive function, physical function, and mental health; (b) people with superior cognitive function, physical function, and mental health, are more likely to engage in LA; and (c) LA and the three constructs influence each other, that is, LA engagement positively affects measures of successful aging which, in turn, promotes LA engagement. This latter possibility is, in our opinion, the most likely explanation. That being said, studies implementing an LA intervention are necessary to test this hypothesis. Specifically, a longitudinal non-recursive SEM model would allow researchers to assess this presumed “virtuous circle” between LA engagement and measures of successful aging by imposing a feedback loop between the variables at different time points.

Conclusions

The present study reported an SEM model examining the relationship between LA engagement and three essential dimensions of successful aging (i.e., cognitive function, physical function, and mental health) in a large sample of Japanese older adults. In line with substantial research into the field, the results confirmed the link between LA engagement and cognitive function. However, the size of the effect was meaningfully smaller than the one reported in previous studies. Similar effects were found for physical function and mental health.

The investigation significantly extends our knowledge in the field. First, thanks to a more comprehensive modeling approach, the study provides a more reliable estimate of the impact of LA engagement on cognitive function. Second, due to the use of multiple and objective physical indicators, it adds much-needed evidence of a link between LA engagement and preservation of good physical function in the elderly. Similar considerations apply to the influence of LA engagement in older adults’ mental health. Third, the findings suggest that the role played by LA engagement is cultural-independent. Finally, our study sheds some light on mechanisms of LA engagement that have not been much (if not at all) investigated so far, such as the bidirectional effects of practicing LAs on cognitive function and physical function.

Acknowledgments

We gratefully thank all the participants for their time and effort. We also thank Fred Oswald and Yves Rosseel for their assistance in the statistical analysis.

Funding Statement

This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science [17F17313 to GS; 17H02633 to YG], the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology of Japan [21330152 to YG; 26310104 to YG], the Grant for promoting Human Sciences research by Osaka university Graduate school of Human Sciences and the International Joint Research Promotion Program at Osaka. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Data Availability

Articles on Leisure

Displaying 1 - 20 of 25 articles.

The Art of Climbing: a brief history of photographing rock-climbing

Simon Bainbridge , Lancaster University

Why is free time still so elusive?

Gary Cross , Penn State

The strange history of ice cream flavours – from brown bread to Parmesan and paté

Lindsay Middleton , University of Glasgow

Cosy gaming: how curling up with Animal Crossing is changing what it means to be a gamer

Conor Mckeown , University of Stirling

Want to pre-drink before going out? It probably won’t save you money, and can be risky to boot

Kim M Caudwell , Charles Darwin University

American workers feel alienated, helpless and overwhelmed – here’s one way to alleviate their malaise

Alec Stubbs , UMass Boston

Women are too tired and time-strapped for board games due to shrinking leisure time

Tanya A Pobuda , Toronto Metropolitan University

The power of short breaks, movement and other practices on improving mental health – 4 essential reads

Michelle McAdams, The Conversation and Jacqueline Kim , The Conversation

I studied people who think leisure is a waste of time – here’s what I found

Selin Malkoc , The Ohio State University

The success of Iceland’s ‘ four-day week’ trial has been greatly overstated

Anthony Veal , University of Technology Sydney

The history of sneakers: from commodity to cultural icon

Naomi Braithwaite , Nottingham Trent University

Reopen recreation spaces after COVID-19 for the good of the public, not the individual

Bruce Erickson , University of Manitoba

Tourists told me what they think of Elmina. Ghana needs to do some things differently

Alexander Diani Kofi Preko , University of Professional Studies Accra

Critics who say online gaming is ‘just a game’ completely miss the point

Joe Todd , University of Waterloo

When it comes to leisure, disabled Ghanaians get a raw deal. What can be done

Issahaku Adam , University of Cape Coast

A ‘coup des gens’ is underway – and we’re increasingly living under the regime of the algorithm

Simon Gottschalk , University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Community pool projects show how citizens are helping to build cities

Timothy Moore , Monash University

How to get more Americans to volunteer

Rebecca Nesbit , University of Georgia and Robert Christensen , Brigham Young University

Automation, robots and the ‘end of work’ myth

Tony Dundon , University of Manchester and Debra Howcroft , University of Manchester

The travel industry has sparked a backlash against tourists by stressing quantity over quality

Carter A. Hunt , Penn State

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Professor of HRM & Employment Relations, University of Limerick

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Leisure and Recreation Concepts: A Critical Analysis. Jay S. Shivers

1986, Journal of Leisure Research

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Leisure researchers and practitioners often espouse the inherent value of leisure experience. Leisure experience is seen to have benefits to the individual, to social groups, and to society. However, the thesis posed by this panel discussion is that the value of leisure is a social construction and thus is created by humans, changes over time and is open to interpretation. One of the ways in which meaning is created is through the polarization of viewpoints. For example, leisure is inherently good for people as compared to leisure places people at risk. This panel discussion will examine the paradox of leisure in the context of gambling, the paradox of leisure in the process of recovering from adversity, the paradox of leisure for youth, and the paradox of touristic leisure.

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Leisure as a Category of Culture, Philosophy and RecreationWhen we look at the very origins of human world, civilization in its history and prehistory, we can trace strong evidence of the archaic presence of leisure in human life. It seems striking and meaningful that in fact all that is human streams out from leisure. Leisure occurs to be an arch-human phenomenon. This paper addresses this multidimensional cultural presence and the sense and value of leisure conceived as a source of civilization, symbolic thought, social institutions, habits and practices. The cultural primordiality of leisure is evident when we take into consideration an aboriginal release from total preoccupation with only impulsive and instinctual survival activities that took place in the era of Homo habilis some 2 millions years ago. It is obvious that free time was a great achievement of these evolutionary forms of human beings when we reflect upon the earliest seeds of consciousness expressed in primitive pe...

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This paper examines major trends in leisure in an attempt to trace some possible future developments in the consumption and production of leisure in general, and tourism in particular. The first part of the analysis concentrates on the time dimension, examining the changing relationship between work and leisure time in the developed world. This is followed by an analysis of the social consequences of the ‘growth’ of leisure, particularly in terms of the growing imbalance in the distribution of work and leisure time. The future implications of this imbalance are then considered, particularly in terms of its potential influence on tourism consumption.

Jasper Fiévez

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A paradigm shift to working to protect the leisure of people in later life from the machinery of growth and consumption is needed. Recognition of the rational instrumental drivers behind active ageing is overdue, research in this area could be about enhancing quality of life, instead it focuses on how to make lives cost less. This book offers a modest development in Leisure Constraints Theory, developing understanding of the interaction of interpersonal and structural constraints in later leisure lives, thus troubling ideas of separate levels of constraints. The Mass Observation Archive offers additional voices for the study of leisure in the context of everyday life. It supported this study of later life leisure to see beyond the noisy concepts of death and disability and ‘age induced constraints’ that direct much leisure in later life research.

Andrew Purrington , Benjamin Hickerson

Leisure is a complex topic that, at times, appears to defy logical explanation. Research that examines and compares leisure cross-culturally can provide important information to aid our understanding of the phenomenon. With an increasing need for such studies, researchers have recognised that common academic definitions of leisure may not directly translate or be usefully applied in such research. In this paper, we re-examine the concept of leisure to develop an operational definition that is applicable across cultures and ensures comparability across study results. To do this, we review and incorporate theories and research from biology, anthropology, psychology, economics and leisure studies to identify key characteristics and develop a definition of leisure. We also discuss potential methodological and theoretical implications of using the proposed definition.

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, 113 great research paper topics.

General Education

One of the hardest parts of writing a research paper can be just finding a good topic to write about. Fortunately we've done the hard work for you and have compiled a list of 113 interesting research paper topics. They've been organized into ten categories and cover a wide range of subjects so you can easily find the best topic for you.

In addition to the list of good research topics, we've included advice on what makes a good research paper topic and how you can use your topic to start writing a great paper.

What Makes a Good Research Paper Topic?

Not all research paper topics are created equal, and you want to make sure you choose a great topic before you start writing. Below are the three most important factors to consider to make sure you choose the best research paper topics.

#1: It's Something You're Interested In

A paper is always easier to write if you're interested in the topic, and you'll be more motivated to do in-depth research and write a paper that really covers the entire subject. Even if a certain research paper topic is getting a lot of buzz right now or other people seem interested in writing about it, don't feel tempted to make it your topic unless you genuinely have some sort of interest in it as well.

#2: There's Enough Information to Write a Paper

Even if you come up with the absolute best research paper topic and you're so excited to write about it, you won't be able to produce a good paper if there isn't enough research about the topic. This can happen for very specific or specialized topics, as well as topics that are too new to have enough research done on them at the moment. Easy research paper topics will always be topics with enough information to write a full-length paper.

Trying to write a research paper on a topic that doesn't have much research on it is incredibly hard, so before you decide on a topic, do a bit of preliminary searching and make sure you'll have all the information you need to write your paper.

#3: It Fits Your Teacher's Guidelines

Don't get so carried away looking at lists of research paper topics that you forget any requirements or restrictions your teacher may have put on research topic ideas. If you're writing a research paper on a health-related topic, deciding to write about the impact of rap on the music scene probably won't be allowed, but there may be some sort of leeway. For example, if you're really interested in current events but your teacher wants you to write a research paper on a history topic, you may be able to choose a topic that fits both categories, like exploring the relationship between the US and North Korea. No matter what, always get your research paper topic approved by your teacher first before you begin writing.

113 Good Research Paper Topics

Below are 113 good research topics to help you get you started on your paper. We've organized them into ten categories to make it easier to find the type of research paper topics you're looking for.

Arts/Culture

• Discuss the main differences in art from the Italian Renaissance and the Northern Renaissance .
• Analyze the impact a famous artist had on the world.
• How is sexism portrayed in different types of media (music, film, video games, etc.)? Has the amount/type of sexism changed over the years?
• How has the music of slaves brought over from Africa shaped modern American music?
• How has rap music evolved in the past decade?
• How has the portrayal of minorities in the media changed?

Current Events

• What have been the impacts of China's one child policy?
• How have the goals of feminists changed over the decades?
• How has the Trump presidency changed international relations?
• Analyze the history of the relationship between the United States and North Korea.
• What factors contributed to the current decline in the rate of unemployment?
• What have been the impacts of states which have increased their minimum wage?
• How do US immigration laws compare to immigration laws of other countries?
• How have the US's immigration laws changed in the past few years/decades?
• How has the Black Lives Matter movement affected discussions and view about racism in the US?
• What impact has the Affordable Care Act had on healthcare in the US?
• What factors contributed to the UK deciding to leave the EU (Brexit)?
• What factors contributed to China becoming an economic power?
• Discuss the history of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies  (some of which tokenize the S&P 500 Index on the blockchain) .
• Do students in schools that eliminate grades do better in college and their careers?
• Do students from wealthier backgrounds score higher on standardized tests?
• Do students who receive free meals at school get higher grades compared to when they weren't receiving a free meal?
• Do students who attend charter schools score higher on standardized tests than students in public schools?
• Do students learn better in same-sex classrooms?
• How does giving each student access to an iPad or laptop affect their studies?
• What are the benefits and drawbacks of the Montessori Method ?
• Do children who attend preschool do better in school later on?
• What was the impact of the No Child Left Behind act?
• How does the US education system compare to education systems in other countries?
• What impact does mandatory physical education classes have on students' health?
• Which methods are most effective at reducing bullying in schools?
• Do homeschoolers who attend college do as well as students who attended traditional schools?
• Does offering tenure increase or decrease quality of teaching?
• How does college debt affect future life choices of students?
• Should graduate students be able to form unions?

• What are different ways to lower gun-related deaths in the US?
• How and why have divorce rates changed over time?
• Is affirmative action still necessary in education and/or the workplace?
• Should physician-assisted suicide be legal?
• How has stem cell research impacted the medical field?
• How can human trafficking be reduced in the United States/world?
• Should people be able to donate organs in exchange for money?
• Which types of juvenile punishment have proven most effective at preventing future crimes?
• Has the increase in US airport security made passengers safer?
• Analyze the immigration policies of certain countries and how they are similar and different from one another.
• Several states have legalized recreational marijuana. What positive and negative impacts have they experienced as a result?
• Do tariffs increase the number of domestic jobs?
• Which prison reforms have proven most effective?
• Should governments be able to censor certain information on the internet?
• Which methods/programs have been most effective at reducing teen pregnancy?
• What are the benefits and drawbacks of the Keto diet?
• How effective are different exercise regimes for losing weight and maintaining weight loss?
• How do the healthcare plans of various countries differ from each other?
• What are the most effective ways to treat depression ?
• What are the pros and cons of genetically modified foods?
• Which methods are most effective for improving memory?
• What can be done to lower healthcare costs in the US?
• What factors contributed to the current opioid crisis?
• Analyze the history and impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic .
• Are low-carbohydrate or low-fat diets more effective for weight loss?
• How much exercise should the average adult be getting each week?
• Which methods are most effective to get parents to vaccinate their children?
• What are the pros and cons of clean needle programs?
• How does stress affect the body?
• Discuss the history of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
• What were the causes and effects of the Salem Witch Trials?
• Who was responsible for the Iran-Contra situation?
• How has New Orleans and the government's response to natural disasters changed since Hurricane Katrina?
• What events led to the fall of the Roman Empire?
• What were the impacts of British rule in India ?
• Was the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki necessary?
• What were the successes and failures of the women's suffrage movement in the United States?
• What were the causes of the Civil War?
• How did Abraham Lincoln's assassination impact the country and reconstruction after the Civil War?
• Which factors contributed to the colonies winning the American Revolution?
• What caused Hitler's rise to power?
• Discuss how a specific invention impacted history.
• What led to Cleopatra's fall as ruler of Egypt?
• How has Japan changed and evolved over the centuries?
• What were the causes of the Rwandan genocide ?

• Why did Martin Luther decide to split with the Catholic Church?
• Analyze the history and impact of a well-known cult (Jonestown, Manson family, etc.)
• How did the sexual abuse scandal impact how people view the Catholic Church?
• How has the Catholic church's power changed over the past decades/centuries?
• What are the causes behind the rise in atheism/ agnosticism in the United States?
• What were the influences in Siddhartha's life resulted in him becoming the Buddha?
• How has media portrayal of Islam/Muslims changed since September 11th?

Science/Environment

• How has the earth's climate changed in the past few decades?
• How has the use and elimination of DDT affected bird populations in the US?
• Analyze how the number and severity of natural disasters have increased in the past few decades.
• Analyze deforestation rates in a certain area or globally over a period of time.
• How have past oil spills changed regulations and cleanup methods?
• How has the Flint water crisis changed water regulation safety?
• What are the pros and cons of fracking?
• What impact has the Paris Climate Agreement had so far?
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• Should the US rely on nuclear energy more?
• What can be done to save amphibian species currently at risk of extinction?
• What impact has climate change had on coral reefs?
• How are black holes created?
• Are teens who spend more time on social media more likely to suffer anxiety and/or depression?
• How will the loss of net neutrality affect internet users?
• Analyze the history and progress of self-driving vehicles.
• How has the use of drones changed surveillance and warfare methods?
• Has social media made people more or less connected?
• What progress has currently been made with artificial intelligence ?
• Do smartphones increase or decrease workplace productivity?
• What are the most effective ways to use technology in the classroom?
• How is Google search affecting our intelligence?
• When is the best age for a child to begin owning a smartphone?
• Has frequent texting reduced teen literacy rates?

How to Write a Great Research Paper

Even great research paper topics won't give you a great research paper if you don't hone your topic before and during the writing process. Follow these three tips to turn good research paper topics into great papers.

#1: Figure Out Your Thesis Early

Before you start writing a single word of your paper, you first need to know what your thesis will be. Your thesis is a statement that explains what you intend to prove/show in your paper. Every sentence in your research paper will relate back to your thesis, so you don't want to start writing without it!

As some examples, if you're writing a research paper on if students learn better in same-sex classrooms, your thesis might be "Research has shown that elementary-age students in same-sex classrooms score higher on standardized tests and report feeling more comfortable in the classroom."

If you're writing a paper on the causes of the Civil War, your thesis might be "While the dispute between the North and South over slavery is the most well-known cause of the Civil War, other key causes include differences in the economies of the North and South, states' rights, and territorial expansion."

#2: Back Every Statement Up With Research

Remember, this is a research paper you're writing, so you'll need to use lots of research to make your points. Every statement you give must be backed up with research, properly cited the way your teacher requested. You're allowed to include opinions of your own, but they must also be supported by the research you give.

#3: Do Your Research Before You Begin Writing

You don't want to start writing your research paper and then learn that there isn't enough research to back up the points you're making, or, even worse, that the research contradicts the points you're trying to make!

Get most of your research on your good research topics done before you begin writing. Then use the research you've collected to create a rough outline of what your paper will cover and the key points you're going to make. This will help keep your paper clear and organized, and it'll ensure you have enough research to produce a strong paper.

What's Next?

Are you also learning about dynamic equilibrium in your science class? We break this sometimes tricky concept down so it's easy to understand in our complete guide to dynamic equilibrium .

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Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

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Places with more college graduates tend to foster better lifestyle habits overall, research finds

by Christy DeSmith, Harvard Gazette

Having more education has long been linked to better individual health. But those benefits are also contagious, say the co-authors of a new working paper .

"It's not just that the individuals who have more years of education are in better health," said David M. Cutler, Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics. "It's that even people with fewer years of education—for example, people with just a high school degree—are in better health when they live around people who have more years of education."

The paper examines why cities with more college graduates see lower mortality rates for residents overall. It's not due to spatial sorting, or the practice of relocating to live amidst those with similar habits. Nor did the researchers find a particularly strong correlation with factors like clean air, low crime, and high-quality health care infrastructure. Instead, most of the explanation involves rates of smoking, physical activity, and obesity.

The pattern has everything to do with a community's common culture, said co-author Edward L. Glaeser, the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics and chair of the Department of Economics. "Smoking, for example, is a social activity," he said. "Fundamentally, being around other smokers is fine if you're smoking, but it's usually pretty unpleasant if you're not smoking."

Glaeser, an urban economist and author of "Triumph of the City" (2011), has spent decades studying how varying education levels play out across U.S. society. One well-established finding concerns economic resilience . "If you ask yourself, which American cities managed to turn themselves around after the very difficult period of the 1970s and 1980s? Educated places like Seattle or Boston did. Less-educated places did not," Glaeser said.

For his part, Cutler, a health economist , spent the last few decades parsing the strong link between education and individual health outcomes. All the while he kept collaborating with Glaeser to explore obesity , smoking , and other health-related behaviors at the community level. The economists revisited these issues in the 2021 book "Survival of the City: The Future of Urban Life in an Age of Isolation."

Also collaborating on the new paper were Jacob H. Bor, an associate professor of global health at Boston University, and Ljubica Ristovska, a postdoctoral fellow at Yale. Together, the researchers rejected the spatial sorting explanation with the help of data from the University of Michigan's Health and Retirement Study .

Similar analysis was done using data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of young women and men. Results showed that unhealthy people of all ages relocate more frequently than healthy ones. But both groups settle in areas with roughly equal levels of human capital (defined here as a population's years of education).

The team analyzed a variety of information sources—from county-level homicide statistics to regional estimates of air quality and a federal measure of hospital quality —to see whether mortality differentials are due to area amenities. "We estimate that at most 17% percent of the human capital externality on health is due to these external factors, driven largely by greater use of preventative care," the co-authors wrote.

Instead, the majority of the correlation between human capital and area health—at least 60 percent—is explained by differences in health-related behaviors, the researchers found. Combining data from both the U.S. Census Bureau and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that every 10% increase in an area's share of college graduates was associated with an annual 7% decrease in all-cause mortality.

With additional data from the CDC's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey (CPS), the researchers were able to probe connections between human capital and various health-related behaviors. Every 10% increase in an area's college graduates was associated with a 13% decrease in smoking, a 7% decrease in having no physical activity, and a 12% decrease in the probability of being very obese.

"It really opens up all these questions of how people form their beliefs," Cutler said.

The paper went deepest on smoking, given the wealth of historical numbers on cigarette initiation, cessation, and beliefs. CPS data showed that in cities where people have more years of education—New York City, Boston, or Seattle, for example—people are more likely to think that smoking is bad for you.

Residents of these cities are also likelier to support smoking regulations. For every 10% increase in bachelor's degrees, the probability of working at a place with a complete smoking ban increases by 2 percentage points.

Cutler and Glaeser were especially fascinated to find a growing connection over time between human capital and area health, especially between the years 1990 and 2010. As the correlation between individual education and behavior increased, they explained, the relationship between a community's education levels and its mortality rates slowly followed suit.

"Just look at people who were 70 in 2000," said Glaeser, who has observed a similar dynamic over the same period between human capital and earnings . "These people were 30 in 1960. A lot of people were smoking in 1960, and there wasn't nearly as strong of an education gradient as we saw 30 years later."

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New treatment could reverse hair loss caused by an autoimmune skin disease

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Researchers at MIT, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School have developed a potential new treatment for alopecia areata, an autoimmune disorder that causes hair loss and affects people of all ages, including children.

For most patients with this type of hair loss, there is no effective treatment. The team developed a microneedle patch that can be painlessly applied to the scalp and releases drugs that help to rebalance the immune response at the site, halting the autoimmune attack.

In a study of mice, the researchers found that this treatment allowed hair to regrow and dramatically reduced inflammation at the treatment site, while avoiding systemic immune effects elsewhere in the body. This strategy could also be adapted to treat other autoimmune skin diseases such as vitiligo, atopic dermatitis, and psoriasis, the researchers say.

“This innovative approach marks a paradigm shift. Rather than suppressing the immune system, we’re now focusing on regulating it precisely at the site of antigen encounter to generate immune tolerance,” says Natalie Artzi, a principal research scientist in MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and an associate faculty member at the Wyss Institute of Harvard University.

Artzi and Jamil R. Azzi, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, are the senior authors of the new study , which appears in the journal Advanced Materials . Nour Younis, a Brigham and Women’s postdoc, and Nuria Puigmal, a Brigham and Women’s postdoc and former MIT research affiliate, are the lead authors of the paper.

The researchers are now working on launching a company to further develop the technology, led by Puigmal, who was recently awarded a Harvard Business School Blavatnik Fellowship.

Direct delivery

Alopecia areata, which affects more than 6 million Americans, occurs when the body’s own T cells attack hair follicles, leading the hair to fall out. The only treatment available to most patients — injections of immunosuppressant steroids into the scalp — is painful and patients often can’t tolerate it.

Some patients with alopecia areata and other autoimmune skin diseases can also be treated with immunosuppressant drugs that are given orally, but these drugs lead to widespread suppression of the immune system, which can have adverse side effects.

“This approach silences the entire immune system, offering relief from inflammation symptoms but leading to frequent recurrences. Moreover, it increases susceptibility to infections, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer,” Artzi says.

A few years ago, at a working group meeting in Washington, Artzi happened to be seated next to Azzi (the seating was alphabetical), an immunologist and transplant physican who was seeking new ways to deliver drugs directly to the skin to treat skin-related diseases.

Their conversation led to a new collaboration, and the two labs joined forces to work on a microneedle patch to deliver drugs to the skin. In 2021, they reported that such a patch can be used to prevent rejection following skin transplant. In the new study, they began applying this approach to autoimmune skin disorders.

“The skin is the only organ in our body that we can see and touch, and yet when it comes to drug delivery to the skin, we revert to systemic administration. We saw great potential in utilizing the microneedle patch to reprogram the immune system locally,” Azzi says.

The microneedle patches used in this study are made from hyaluronic acid crosslinked with polyethylene glycol (PEG), both of which are biocompatible and commonly used in medical applications. With this delivery method, drugs can pass through the tough outer layer of the epidermis, which can’t be penetrated by creams applied to the skin.

“This polymer formulation allows us to create highly durable needles capable of effectively penetrating the skin. Additionally, it gives us the flexibility to incorporate any desired drug,” Artzi says. For this study, the researchers loaded the patches with a combination of the cytokines IL-2 and CCL-22. Together, these immune molecules help to recruit regulatory T cells, which proliferate and help to tamp down inflammation. These cells also help the immune system learn to recognize that hair follicles are not foreign antigens, so that it will stop attacking them.

Hair regrowth

The researchers found that mice treated with this patch every other day for three weeks had many more regulatory T cells present at the site, along with a reduction in inflammation. Hair was able to regrow at those sites, and this growth was maintained for several weeks after the treatment ended. In these mice, there were no changes in the levels of regulatory T cells in the spleen or lymph nodes, suggesting that the treatment affected only the site where the patch was applied.

In another set of experiments, the researchers grafted human skin onto mice with a humanized immune system. In these mice, the microneedle treatment also induced proliferation of regulatory T cells and a reduction in inflammation.

The researchers designed the microneedle patches so that after releasing their drug payload, they can also collect samples that could be used to monitor the progress of the treatment. Hyaluronic acid causes the needles to swell about tenfold after entering the skin, which allows them to absorb interstitial fluid containing biomolecules and immune cells from the skin.

Following patch removal, researchers can analyze samples to measure levels of regulatory T cells and inflammation markers. This could prove valuable for monitoring future patients who may undergo this treatment.

The researchers now plan to further develop this approach for treating alopecia, and to expand into other autoimmune skin diseases.

The research was funded by the Ignite Fund and Shark Tank Fund awards from the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

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Press mentions, healthday news.

MIT researchers have developed microneedle patches that are capable of restoring hair growth in alopecia areata patients, reports Ernie Mundell for HealthDay . The team’s approach includes a, “patch containing myriad microneedles that is applied to the scalp,” writes Mundell. “It releases drugs to reset the immune system so it stops attacking follicles.” 

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Revenue Slumps and Fiscal Capacity: Evidence from Brazil

This paper investigates how non-tax revenues impact tax collection in Brazilian municipalities, focusing on shifts in intergovernmental transfers due to population updates. Our analysis reveals asymmetric effects of shocks: revenue gains lead to increased spending without tax reductions, while losses in transfers prompt investments in fiscal capacity and boost tax revenues. Enhancing fiscal capacity entails adjusting tax bureaucrat payments, improving property registries, and cracking down on delinquency, with heterogeneous responses based on political competition and the educational levels of local leaders and the bureaucracy. These findings emphasize the importance of rules that reduce the reliance on non-tax revenues and promote effective tax collection.

We are grateful to Juliano Assunão, Bruno Ferman, Fred Finan, François Gerard, Gustavo Gonzaga, Rudi Rocha, David Schonholzer, Jonathan Weigel, and participants at various seminars and conferences for comments and suggestions. We thank financial support for this project from the Spanish Ministry of Education (grant RTI2018-097271-B-I00). The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

MARC RIS BibTeΧ

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