A cross-sectional study of the relationship between exercise, physical activity, and health-related quality of life among Japanese workers during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract Background Exercise and physical activity positively affect physical and mental health, and healthy workers contribute to increased work productivity. This study aimed to investigate time spent on exercise during leisure time and physical activity, including time at work, in relation to health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among Japanese workers. Methods An Internet-based national health survey –Collaborative Online Research on Novel-coronavirus and Work study (CoRoNaWork study) – was conducted among 33,087 Japanese workers in December 2020. After excluding invalid responses, 27,036 participants were categorized into four and five groups according to exercise time and physical activity time, respectively. Each group’s scores were compared on each of the four questions on the Japanese version of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Health-Related Quality of Life (CDC HRQOL-4) between each group using a linear mixed model. Age-sex adjusted and multivariate models were used to compare each index of the CDC HRQOL-4. Results The more time spent exercising, the better the self-rated health. Self-rated health was better and unhealthy days were fewer in the group that exercised more than a certain amount of time than in the group that spent almost no time on exercising. As for physical activity, the group that spent more than 120 minutes/day or that almost never engaged in physical activity had lower self-rated health. The group with more than 120 minutes/day of physical activity also had more unhealthy days. Conclusions The results of the present study suggest that exercise habits improve workers’ HRQOL. Interventions to encourage daily exercise even for a short period of time may be an effective strategy to improve workers’ health and productivity.