• Eric S Kim, Koichiro Shiba, Julia K Boehm, and Laura D Kubzansky.
• Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada; Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, United States of America; Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, United States of America; Human Flourishing Program, Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States of America. Electronic address: eric.kim@psych.ubc.ca.
• Prev Med. 2020 Oct 1; 139: 106172.

AbstractAccumulating evidence shows that a higher sense of purpose in life is associated with lower risk of chronic conditions and premature mortality. Health behaviors might partially explain these findings, however, the prospective association between sense of purpose and health behaviors is understudied. We tested whether a higher sense of purpose at baseline was associated with lower likelihood of developing unhealthy behaviors over time. Prospective data were from the Health and Retirement Study, a national sample of U.S. older adults. Our sample included 13,770 adults assessed up to five times across eight years. Among people who met recommended guidelines for a given health behavior outcome at baseline, those in the top versus lowest quartile of purpose in life had 24% lower likelihood of becoming physically inactive (95% CI: 0.68-0.85), 33% lower likelihood of developing sleep problems (95% CI: 0.58-0.79), and 22% lower likelihood of developing unhealthy body mass index (BMI) (95% CI: 0.69-0.87) in sociodemographic-adjusted models. Further there was a marginal reduction in smoking relapse (HR = 0.65, 95% CI: 0.41-1.03) and no association with heavy alcohol use (HR = 1.02, 95% CI: 0.81-1.29). Findings for physical inactivity, sleep problems, and unhealthy BMI remained evident after further adjusting for baseline health status and depression. Our results, suggest that a sense of purpose in life might emerge (with further research) as a valuable target to consider for interventions aimed at helping older adults maintain some health behaviors.Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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