Special issue—socioeconomic perspective on physical activity and aging

Browsing the different areas listed in the EURAPA homepage, you will find a broad scope of topics related to physical activity and aging (PAA). They encompass the narrow sense of PAA covering only protective and therapeutical factors or exercise programs. New scientific and sociopolitical developments demonstrate that PAA has become more and more related to questions of society and economy. This broader perspective includes health- and safety-enhancing effects and age-related diseases such as osteoporosis, dementia, depression, and falls (their prevention, consequences, and costs). Beyond these topics, home and residential situation are regarded. This society-oriented focus of PAA leads to research differentiations, as represented in the papers of this issue, but also to the individual perspective considering the social-individual, psychological situation, and the psychosocial background of personal well-being.

Considering topical and future research and looking beyond our own borders, these perspectives could be integrated in the emerging and undoubtedly highly relevant field of epigenetics. Changes in gene expression as responses to behavioral and environmental exposures are researched in epigenetics. Epigenetic mechanisms are active in the brain throughout lifetime. This perspective could contribute to explaining mechanisms of disease and aging. Interdisciplinary research between epigenetics and the socioeconomic perspectives on PAA will become more significant in the future in order to find significant factors and mechanisms with which to stimulate, influence, and regulate the quantity and quality of physical activity in our aging societies. We would like to invite our readership to submit articles on the highly topical subject of epigenetics in combination with biomedical, behavioral, and socioeconomic perspectives of PAA.

We are delighted, and indeed very grateful, that Dr. Breuer and his contributing colleagues—with their different orientations—accepted the challenge for this special issue and introduced this important background of the socioeconomic perspective to EURAPA. The reader will find some more papers in this issue which are not directly related to the topic of the special issue.