Gait speed and its associated factors among older black adults in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from the WHO study on Global AGEing in older adults (SAGE)

Phyllis Tawiah; Paulina Boadiwaa Mensah; Solomon Gyabaah; Atinuke Olusola Adebanji; Emmanuel Konadu; Isaac Amoah

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0295520

Gait speed and its associated factors among older black adults in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from the WHO study on Global AGEing in older adults (SAGE)

PLoS One. 2024 Apr 18;19(4):e0295520. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0295520. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Phyllis Tawiah^{1

2}, Paulina Boadiwaa Mensah², Solomon Gyabaah³, Atinuke Olusola Adebanji⁴, Emmanuel Konadu⁵, Isaac Amoah⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Medicine, School of Medicine and Dentistry, College of Health Sciences, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana.
² University Hospital, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana.
³ Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Kumasi, Ghana.
⁴ Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana.
⁵ School of Public Health, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana.
⁶ Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana.

Abstract

Gait speed is an essential predictor of functional and cognitive decline in older adults. The study aimed to investigate the gait speed of older adults in Ghana and South Africa and to determine its associated factors, as the Sub-Saharan representatives in the World Health Organization's Study on Global AGEing in Older Adults (SAGE). A secondary analysis of data from the SAGE study which consists of nationally representative data involving participants aged ≥50+ years with smaller samples of younger adults aged 18-49 years in Ghana and South Africa was conducted. SAGE study employed a multistage, stratified clustered sample design and involved the use of a standardised questionnaire to obtain participants' (n = 5808) demographic, anthropometric and gait speed information. The standard 4 metre-gait speed was used. Median gait speed for the study group, which comprised African/Black participants aged ≥50+ years was 0.769(Q1 = 0.571, Q3 = 0.952)m/s for males and 0.667 (Q1 = 0.500,Q3 = 0.833)m/s for females. For every unit increase in age, the odds of being in a higher-ranked gait speed category was 0.96(95%CI 0·96, 0·97, p<0.001) times that of the previous age. Females had odds of 0.55 (95%CI 0.50, 0.61, p<0.001) of recording higher gait speed, as compared to males. Rural dwellers had odds of 1.43 (95%CI 1.29, 1.58, p < 0.001) of being in a higher-ranked category of gait speed compared to urban dwellers. Underweight (OR = 0.85, 95%C1 = 0.73-1.00, p<0.05) and obesity (OR = 0.53, 95%CI = 0.46-0.61, p<0.001) were associated with slower gait speed. Amongst functional indices, the World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule (WHODAS) score was the biggest determinant of gait speed. Having a "Severe/Extreme" WHODAS score had the strongest association with gait speed (OR = 0.18, 95%CI = 0.14-0.23, p<0.001). These gait speed results provide an essential reference for older adults' care in Ghana and South Africa.

Copyright: © 2024 Tawiah et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

MeSH terms

Aged
Aging*
Female
Ghana
Humans
Male
Obesity
Walking Speed*
World Health Organization

Grants and funding

The authors would like to state that this work was a secondary analysis of the WHO SAGE WAVE 1 data. Even though funding was provided for the data collection, the authors of this manuscript received no funding for this present work.