ArticleFrontiers in public health2026
Adolescent sports participation and social-class health inequalities: evidence from CHNS.
Article in Frontiers in public health, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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1 citing paper in PubMed.
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Purpose: Health inequalities rooted in social stratification remain a persistent structural public-health challenge. While physical activity is recognized as a health-enhancing behavior, limited longitudinal evidence exists on how its effects vary across social classes. This study examines the life-course interactions among social class, physical-activity participation, and aging, and evaluates whether youth physical activity mitigates class-based health disparities. Methods: Data were drawn from five waves (1997, 2000, 2004, 2006, and 2015) of the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), comprising 39,672 individuals and 180,696 person-year observations. Growth-curve models were used to estimate trajectories of self-rated health and assess the interactive effects of social class, physical activity, and age, controlling for demographic characteristics. Results: Health inequalities exhibited structural rigidity: health gradients between social strata widened from 1997 to 2015, and early-life disparities persisted throughout aging, forming "parallel trajectories." Physical activity effects differed significantly by class. Lower-stratum individuals benefited little due to structural constraints; middle-stratum participants showed a "health-behavior paradox," where participation correlated with steeper health decline; upper-stratum groups demonstrated negligible marginal gains due to resource saturation. Conclusion: Universal sports-promotion strategies are insufficient to reduce entrenched health inequalities. Structural reforms addressing socioeconomic constraints, combined with class-sensitive behavioral interventions, are essential to disrupt the reproduction of health disparities and promote equitable healthy aging across the life course.
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