Table 1

Descriptive statistics for the full study cohort, those with a long-term illness or disability and those with no long-term health problems and comparisons of distribution of categorical variables

Variable	Full cohort		Long-term illness/disability		No long-term illness/disability		p Value*
Variable	N	Per cent	N	Per cent	N	Per cent	p Value*
Sex							0.020
Male	5754	42.1	1425	40.1	4324	42.8
Female	7905	57.9	2125	59.9	5774	57.2
Age group (years)							<0.001
16–25	1369	10	99	2.8	1269	12.6
26–35	2266	16.6	247	7.0	2017	20.0
36–45	2540	18.6	469	13.2	2070	20.5
46–55	2380	17.4	597	16.8	1780	17.6
56–65	2165	15.9	776	21.9	1388	13.7
66–75	1738	12.7	752	21.2	985	9.8
>75	1201	8.8	610	17.2	589	5.8
Marital status							<0.001† (testing grouped variables)
Married	7455	54.6	1762	49.6	5687	56.3
Cohabiting	777	5.7	92	2.6	683	6.8
Single	2911	21.3	597	16.8	2311	22.9
Widowed	1276	9.3	617	17.4	659	6.5
Divorced	703	5.1	288	8.1	415	4.1
Separated	521	3.8	191	5.4	330	3.3
Same sex couple	16	0.1	3	0.1	13	0.1
Religion							<0.001
Catholic	5527	40.5	1367	38.5	4157	41.2
Protestant	7184	52.6	1972	55.5	5209	51.6
Other/none	811	5.9	191	5.4	618	6.1
Education							<0.001
Degree	1949	14.3	180	5.1	1768	17.5
All other qualifications	6695	49.0	1250	35.2	5442	53.9
No qualifications	2835	20.8	1065	30.0	1768	17.5
Sport participation							<0.001
Yes	6486	47.5	868	24.5	5615	55.6
Days/week in sport							<0.001
0	1600	11.7	307	8.6	1293	12.8
1	1679	12.3	227	6.4	1451	14.4
2	1192	8.7	139	3.9	1052	10.4
3	868	6.4	91	2.6	777	7.7
4	378	2.8	26	0.7	351	3.5
5	332	2.4	32	0.9	300	3.0
6	114	0.8	6	0.2	108	1.1
7	305	2.2	39	1.1	266	2.6
Sport (min/week)							0.802
0–30	4321	96.8	593	98.2	3727	96.6
>30, <60	57	0.13	4	0.7	53	1.4
60–90	16	0.4	1	0.2	15	0.4
>90–150	44	1.0	4	0.7	40	1.0
>150	27	0.6	2	0.3	25	0.6
Sports club member							<0.001
Yes	2757	20.2	389	11.0	2365	23.4
Health last year							<0.001
Good	7673	56.2	433	12.2	7238	71.7
Fairly good	3706	27.1	1212	34.1	2491	24.7
Not good	2275	16.7	1904	53.6	368	3.6
Current smoker
Yes	3210	44.9	974	47.0	2234	44.1	0.073

*χ² Tests were used to compare the groups: those with a long-term illness to those with no long-term illness.
†Footnotes groupings for χ² tests—married/cohabiting v single v widowed/divorced/separated/same sex couple.