Normative Steps/Day Values for Older Adults: NHANES

Background. Pedometers are more likely than accelerometers to be used in walking interventions and other applica-tions, including wide spread adoption by lay people. The purpose of this article is to provide older adults ’ sex-and-age-specific normative values for accelerometer-determined steps/day, adjusted to a pedometer-based scale. Methods. The data source was accelerometer data collected over multiple valid days (defined as ≥ 10 h/day; mean 5.8 ± SE 0.1 valid days) from 1,196 60+ year olds participating in the 2005–2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Accelerometer data were adjusted to a pedometer scale using an established process of censoring steps counted during those minutes where activity counts totaled <500. Quintile-defined categories of adjusted steps/day (lowest, below average, average, above average, and highest) for six age groups (60–64, 65–69, 70–74, 75–79, 80–84, and 85+ years) were computed for the entire sample and separately for each sex. LMSChartmakerPro was used to create smoothed percentile curves corresponding to the 5th, 25th, 50th, 75th, and 95th percentiles