Methodological considerations
The design of the ‘Living an Active Life’ study is crosssectional.
Therefore, we can only provide a snapshot of the
current health behaviour of the participants. However, we
hypothesize that our data reflects typical behaviour patterns.
At least as far as German-speaking areas are concerned, health
behaviour clusters seem to remain stable over time. In this
study, we particularly emphasized the regularity of physical
activities, asked about current and former smoking habits,
and interviewed participants about their eating habits over the
last 12 months.
One main limitation arising out of the nature of the study
is that the data generated reflect information elicited from
the subjects themselves. As such, social desirability may be an
issue.38 While the proportion of subjects who engage in
sporting activities on a regular basis is obviously higher in this
study as compared to others,39,40 this percentage is in
accordance with the results of the GSTel 2003 study.25 The
variability in different studies indicates that not only social
desirability but also the type of question, the context and
the range of possible answers might also play a role.23
Because the subjects included in the study all resided in
Baden-Wuerttemberg it is impossible to decide whether the
data are representative for Germany. Additionally, the
hierarchical cluster method does not allow for the inclusion
of weighting factors. This also affects the generalizability of
statements about the absolute size of clusters, although the
different health behavioural clusters themselves have been
validated.
With respect to analyses of the descriptive aspects of the
study, the application of weighting factors was possible. In this
case the prevalence for the four health behaviour indicators
correspond well with national values from official public
health sources.41
This study’s strength lies in the novel and innovative
application of a method used in other scientific fields. Thus, it
is the first study which has identified a typology of health
behaviour patterns in the over 50-year-old population in the
German-speaking area by cluster analysis.