Let's Walk: A Quasi-Experimental Multi-Component Intervention to Improve Physical Activity and Social Engagement for Older Chinese American Adults.

Physical activity (PA) is critical for healthy aging, yet < 16% of U.S. older adults meet federal recommendations for moderate to vigorous PA. Asian Americans are a rapidly growing segment of the older adult population, who are less likely to meet these guidelines, and are frequently under-represented in clinical trials. This quasi-experimental pilot study evaluated the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effectiveness of a culturally tailored walking program to improve PA and social engagement for older Chinese Americans in Boston, MA. Participants at two community organizations were assigned to an enhanced walking or walking only condition for 12 weeks. Mixed effect repeated measures analysis addressed the study aims. The enhanced walking group (intervention) had fewer steps at baseline and less of a reduction in steps by 12 weeks as compared with the walking only (control) condition. Mean social engagement scores were significantly higher at 12 weeks (p = .03) for the intervention group. A culturally tailored walking intervention was feasible and acceptable for older Chinese Americans, improving social engagement and PA scores.

A Latent Deprivation Perspective: Mechanisms Linking Volunteering to Mental Health in Later Life.

This study tests the hypothesis that the latent deprivation model (LDM) can be extended to volunteer work, by exploring the extent to which two potential latent benefits of volunteer work-purpose in life and perceived social status-mediate the negative relationship between volunteerism and mental health (measured as depressive symptoms). Structural equation modeling with the full-information maximum likelihood (FIML) was adopted to model a sample of 5887 respondents from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). The outcome was depressive symptoms; the independent variable was volunteering; and the mediators were "purpose in life" and "perceived social status." Findings show that purpose in life and perceived social status partially mediated the relationship between volunteering and depressive symptoms, with purpose in life having a more substantial effect than perceived social status. Implications for future research and practice are also discussed.