Citation

Wen X, Liang Y, Zhu J, Wu T. PLoS One 2013; 8(3): e57232.

Affiliation

Department of Social Medicine and Health Management, School of Public Health, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Public Library of Science)

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0057232

PMID

23469186

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The aim of the current study was to explore the relationship between housework and health of retired older adults, and to provide new evidences and clues for the effects of housework on health. METHODOLOGY-PRINCIPAL-FINDINGS: The data came from the baseline survey of the Tongji-Dongfeng Cohort Study with 25,501 participants. The independent variable was housework including child care, elder care, grocery shopping & cooking, and washing clothes & cleaning house. The dependent variable was self-reported two-week illness. Age, education, marital status, smoking and drinking were used as potential confounding variables. There are gender differences in the four types of housework, with higher prevalence among women than among men. The prevalence of two-week illness in women was higher than that in men. After adjusting for potential confounding variables, the four types of housework had almost no significant effects on two-week illness, except for washing clothes & cleaning house with a negative effect for women (OR = 1.17, 95% CI 1.06-1.29). CONCLUSIONS-SIGNIFICANCE: The association of housework with health, especially of child care, elder care, and grocery shopping & cooking without significance and of washing clothes & cleaning house with significance for women, would provide a valuable clue for in-depth study of housework, namely the effects of housework on health would be subdivided into the dimensions of psychological and social activity besides physical activity, and it may not be suitable to simply classify housework as a kind of exercise.

Language: en