ACTGHS meets physical activity guideline, adult age groups

Commentary

80.4% of respondents to the 2021 ACT General Health Survey respondents aged 18 to 24 years, 74.5% of respondents aged 25 to 44 years, 66.7% of respondents aged 45 to 64 years and 62.9% of respondents aged 65 years and over reported that they meet the physical activity guideline. There was no significant difference between age groups in 2021.

Meeting the physical activity guideline for adults aged 18 years and over is based on the ABS definition of participating in at least 150 minutes of activity (including walking for transport and fitness, and moderate and vigorous activity). If number of times for walking, moderate activity or vigorous activity was zero, the number of hours and minutes was given a value of zero.

For the purpose of reporting the ACT General Health Survey data on HealthStats, if the 95% confidence intervals of the estimates do not overlap, they are considered to be significantly different.

Note: The indicator shows self-reported data collected through Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI). Estimates were weighted to adjust for differences in the probability of selection among respondents and were benchmarked to the estimated residential population using the latest available Australian Bureau of Statistics population estimates.

Data for physical activity guidelines are not collected every third year (i.e. 2019 and 2022).

Persons includes male, female, other and refused sex respondents and may not always add to the sum of male and female.

Statistically significant differences are difficult to detect for smaller jurisdictions such as the Australian Capital Territory. Sometimes, even large apparent differences may not be statistically significant. This is particularly the case in breakdowns of small populations because the small sample size means that there is not enough power to identify even large differences as statistically significant.

Chart

Proportion of adults aged 18 years and over who meet the Australian Physical Activity Guideline, by age group, ACT General Health Survey, 2011-2021

Data

To access the data, select "View source data" link at the bottom of the visualisation. This link will open up a data table that you can download.

Codes and sources

Q. In the last week, how many times have you walked continuously for at least 10 minutes for recreation or exercise or to get to or from places?
Q. What do you estimate was the total time you spent walking in this way in the last week?
Q. In the last week, how many times did you do any vigorous physical activity which made you breather harder or puff and pant?
Q. What do you estimate was the total time you spent doing this vigorous physical activity in the last week?
Q. In the last week, how many times did you do any other more moderate physical activity that you haven't already mentioned?
Q. What do you estimate was the total time that you spent doing these activities in the last week?

Don't know and refused responses were excluded from analysis.

A copy of the ACT General Health Survey questionnaires can be found in Data collections.