CDC seminar: Physical activity tied to lower COVID severity; adult activity rose but youth declines persist

Dr. Jeff Whitfield, who leads the Epidemiology and Surveillance team within the Physical Activity and Health Branch at CDC, told a virtual seminar that “physical activity is one of the best things that people can do for their health” and presented multiple lines of surveillance evidence on who is meeting federal activity recommendations and what that means for health.

Whitfield summarized a large study of nearly 50,000 people with COVID‑19 that grouped patients by habitual activity (inactive, inconsistently active, consistently active). “Among the most inactive patients with COVID‑19, 10.5 percent were hospitalized, 2.8 went into the intensive care unit, and 2.4 percent died,” he said, and added that consistently active people were “much less likely to be hospitalized be admitted to the ICU or to die of COVID‑19” than less active peers. He also told attendees that, in that analysis, being inactive carried risk magnitudes comparable to well‑established factors such as diabetes or having had an organ transplant.

The public‑health implications, Whitfield said, are large: insufficient activity is associated with substantial health‑care costs. He cited CDC analyses estimating that roughly 11 percent of adult health‑care expenditures from 2006–2011 were associated with inadequate physical activity — an amount the presentation framed as about $117 billion per year — and referenced an NIH/CDC analysis of AARP members finding lifetime activity patterns tied to Medicare cost differences (estimates cited in the seminar ranged from about $800 to $1,800 per person per year in savings for those who became active earlier in adulthood).

On surveillance trends, Whitfield said the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) showed an increase in adults meeting both aerobic and muscle‑strengthening guidelines from about 14 percent in 1998 to about 24 percent in 2018, with increases visible across age, sex, race/ethnicity and education subgroups. He cautioned, however, that gaps remain: non‑Hispanic White adults are more likely to meet aerobic guidelines than non‑Hispanic Black or Hispanic adults across income levels.

Combining activity across leisure, work, household and transportation (data from NHANES), Whitfield reported a modest rise in the share of adults meeting aerobic guidelines (about 64 percent in 2007–2008 to 68 percent in 2017–2018) and emphasized that walking or biking for transportation remains an underused route to increasing overall activity. He also warned that youth trends are concerning: the Youth Risk Behavior Survey shows decreases in physical activity among both boys and girls, with marked drops evident before the COVID‑19 pandemic and the potential for further declines given pandemic disruptions.

Participants asked about surveillance changes: Whitfield addressed a residency question on the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) shift from a two‑year to a four‑year cycle for some measures. “I would refer folks to the Division of Population Health here at CDC that administers BRFSS,” he said, and advised that the physical inactivity question will continue to be asked annually while DNPAO pursues data modernization. He suggested practitioners use alternative annual sources where appropriate — for example, the American Community Survey for local measures such as walking and bicycling to work — and said CDC is exploring GPS‑enabled device data to augment traditional questionnaires.

The seminar’s evidence‑forward presentation left organizers and attendees with two clear takeaways: regular physical activity yields immediate and long‑term protections (including against severe COVID‑19 outcomes in observational studies), and persistent racial, age and geographic disparities mean policy and planning efforts must prioritize equity and improved access to safe places to be active.

The session moved into Q&A after the presentations and then adjourned.