Health and Quality of Life Outcomes This Provisional PDF corresponds to the article as it appeared upon acceptance Fully formatted PDF and full text (HTML) versions will be made available soon Physical activity and change in quality of life during menopause- an 8-year follow-up study Health and Quality of Life Outcomes 2012, 10:8 doi:10.1186/1477-7525-10-8 Jaana M Moilanen (jaana.m.moilanen@uta.fi) Anna-Mari Aalto (anna-mari.aalto@thl.fi) Jani Raitanen (jani.raitanen@uta.fi) Elina Hemminki (elina.hemminki@thl.fi) Arja R Aro (araro@health.sdu.dk) Riitta Luoto (riitta.luoto@uta.fi) ISSN Article type 1477-7525 Research Submission date 13 September 2011 Acceptance date 23 January 2012 Publication date 23 January 2012 Article URL http://www.hqlo.com/content/10/1/8 This peer-reviewed article was published immediately upon acceptance It can be downloaded, printed and distributed freely for any purposes (see copyright notice below) Articles in HQLO are listed in PubMed and archived at PubMed Central For information about publishing your research in HQLO or any BioMed Central journal, go to http://www.hqlo.com/authors/instructions/ For information about other BioMed Central publications go to http://www.biomedcentral.com/ © 2012 Moilanen et al ; licensee BioMed Central Ltd This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited Physical activity and change in quality of life during menopause –an 8-year followup study Jaana M Moilanen1, Anna-Mari Aalto2, Jani Raitanen1,3, Elina Hemminki2, Arja R Aro4, Riitta Luoto3,5 School of Health Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland Service system department, National Institute for Welfare and Health, Helsinki, Finland UKK Institute for Health Promotion, Tampere, Finland University of Southern Denmark, Esbjerg, Denmark Department of children, young people and families, National Institute for Welfare and Health, Helsinki, Finland E-mail addresses of the authors: JMM: jaana.m.moilanen@uta.fi AMA: anna-mari.aalto@thl.fi JR: jani.raitanen@uta.fi EH: elina.hemminki@thl.fi ARA: araro@health.sdu.dk RL: riitta.luoto@uta.fi Correspondence to: Riitta Luoto UKK Institute for Health Promotion Post box 30 33501 Tampere Finland e-mail riitta.luoto@uta.fi Abstract Background and objectives The aim of this study was to study the role of menopausal status and physical activity on quality of life Methods A total of 1,165 Finnish women aged 45-64 years from a national representative population-based study were followed up for years Study participants completed the Health 2000 study questionnaire and follow-up questionnaire in 2008 Ordinal logistic regression analysis was used to measure the effect of menopausal status on global quality of life (QoL) Other variables included in the analyses were age, education, change of physical activity as assessed with metabolic equivalents, change of weight and hormone therapy (HRT) use Results Peri- and postmenopausal women increased their physical activity (28% and 27%) during the eight-year follow up period slightly more often than premenopausal (18%) women (p=0.070) Menopausal status was not significantly correlated with change of QoL QoL of the most highly educated women was more likely to improve than among the less educated (eb =1.28, 95%CI 1.08 to 1.51 p=0.002) Women whose physical activity increased or remained stable had greater chances for improved QoL than women whose physical activity decreased (eb =1.49, 95%CI 1.23 p