Post-disaster context influencing Quality of Life (QoL) of adolescents: the role of organized physical activity

Environmental determinants of QoL are dramatic in a post-disaster context, particularly in children. In 2015, a cross-sectional survey has been carried out on a sample of 722 adolescents (50.0% males, 13.6 years average age) from two towns in Central Italy, Rieti and L'Aquila. The last one was hit by a big earthquake in 2009, with 309 victims, that destroyed the most part of buildings and had great consequences on physical and social people conditions. Levels of QoL, assessed by means of EQ-5D-Y scale, resulted significantly lower in L’Aquila vs Rieti (p<0.01) and in females vs males (p<0.001). The prevalence of obesity also showed differences in the two areas, but in opposite direction by gender: respectively 10.8% vs 4.9% (p<0.05) in males and 6.8% vs 12.2% (n.s.) in females. Moreover, the prevalence of pre-hypertension and hypertension has been found higher in L’Aquila vs Rieti both for males (70.9% vs 61.4%, p=0.059) and females (58.3% vs 49.4%, n.s.). The proportion of adolescents not practicing structured physical activity resulted higher in L’Aquila vs Rieti both for extra-school Organized PA (respectively 28.0% vs 20.3%, p<0.05) and for school Physical Education (7.4% vs 2.9%, p<0.01). A multiple ordinal logistic model, adjusted per gender, showed that OPA is the only significant determinant of QoL level in L’Aquila (OR=2.29, p<0.01), differently than in Rieti where resulted statistically significant OPA (OR=1.99, p<0.01), obesity (OR=0.37, p<0.05) and SES (OR=1.27, p<0.01). Enhancing OPA is a significant opportunity to recovering QoL and health in young people in a post-disaster context.