Clinic and everyday walking measures ranked death risk similarly
Mortality risk-ranking scores were 0.747 for clinical walking speed versus 0.744 and 0.745 for two measures of everyday step rate.
Edited by Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
The observational Whitehall II cohort study included 4,067 UK participants with an average age of 69.3 years; 74.4% were male. Researchers measured walking speed during a 2.44-meter clinic test and derived everyday step rates from nine days of wrist-worn movement recordings. They examined the median step rate and the 95th percentile, a measure of the higher end of participants’ walking rates.
Over a median follow-up of 11.8 years, faster clinic walking and higher everyday step rates were associated with lower risk of death from any cause after accounting for demographic, behavioral and health factors. Models using each walking measure ranked mortality risk similarly. However, only clinic walking speed improved risk ranking beyond a model containing those other risk factors alone.
Why it matters
Studies of aging need practical ways to assess mortality risk. These findings suggest researchers can choose between clinic and everyday walking measures according to their study’s goals and practical constraints.
Caveats
This observational study cannot establish that walking faster lowers mortality risk. Participants were mostly older men, so the findings should not be assumed to apply equally to younger adults or women.
The paper
Clinical Walking Speed, Free-Living Walking Cadence, and All-Cause Mortality
Norwegian University of Science and Technology; Université Paris Cité
JAMA Network Open, Oct 1, 2026
