Work performed throughout the life of retirees and factors associated with physical inactivity and health conditions

This study aimed to identify the most prevalent chronic diseases among retired residents in the city of Rio Claro-SP and possible associations of work performed during their lives (manual or intellectual) with physical inactivity, body mass index, diseases, and expenses with health services. This is a cross-sectional population study with retired individuals, performed at two moments (2014 and 2018). Instruments used for data collection: Survey of Referred Morbidities; Questionnaire developed by Pimenta (2006); International Physical Activity Questionnaire; Body mass index The statistical tests applied were the Chi-square test, by Kruskal-Wallis and Mann Whitney with the Bonferroni adjustment. The sample of the present study was composed of 171 retirees, with the highest prevalence of married individuals (81.3%), with secondary education incomplete (53.8%), economic class C (49.1%), manual work performed throughout life (54.4%), obese (49.1%), and sedentary (33.9%). The association analysis demonstrated that the majority of the sample who performed manual work throughout life was associated with hypertension (p= 0.01) and Osteoarthritis (p 0.01). It is concluded that manual labor seems to present a greater risk for the development of chronic diseases.