Social inequalities in health-related use of time in Australian adolescents

Abstract

Objective: Young people's socioeconomic position and time use behaviours - including physical activity, sedentary behaviours, social engagement, sleep and cognitive activities - have been associated with health outcomes. This study aimed to describe how time use varies with household income in a representative sample of 9-16 year old Australians. Methods: A random sample of 2, 071 9-16 year old Australian children provided household income data and four days' use-of-time data. Average daily minutes spent in various types of activities were calculated. Kruskal-Wallis and Mann Whitney U tests were used to compare time use across the income bands. Results: Higher income participants spent significantly more time playing sport (p<0.0001), including team sports (p=0.0005) and in cognitively demanding behaviours such as school routine (p<0.0001), doing homework (p<0.0001) and playing music (p=0.001) than their low-income counterparts. Conversely, low-income participants spent significantly more time watching television (p<0.001) and playing videogames (p< 0.0002). There were no differences in sleep or social interaction. Screen time and school-related activities were the major locations of differences. Conclusions: Time use differences in the areas of sport school-related and screen activities may be associated with various health and wellbeing outcomes, and thus be a source of health inequalities. Implications: Socioeconomic-related time use behaviour differences could be used to develop specific interventions to address health inequalities via interventions addressing time use or income inequalities. © 2012 Public Health Association of Australia.