Dose–response association between walking speed and all-cause mortality: A systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies.

This review aims to investigate the dose–response relationship between walking speed and all-cause mortality. PubMed, Web of Science, Embase and Cochrane Library were searched to September, 2023 for cohort studies. A meta-analysis estimated the overall hazard ratio (HR) of mortality incidence and 95% Confidence Interval (CI) for individuals with the fastest walking speed compared to those with the slowest walking speed. Subgroup analyses were conducted based on sex, age and speed-measuring methods. Dose–response meta-analyses were examined by using "mvmeta" packages available in STATA. A total of 13 studies involving 530,841 participants were included. Of these, 11 studies provided data for dose–response meta-analyses. Individuals in the fastest walking-speed category had a 43% lower risk of all-cause mortality compared to those in the slowest walking-speed category (HR = 0.57, 95% CI 0.48–0.66). There was an inverse linear dose–response relationship between walking speed and all-cause mortality; for every 0.1 m/s increment in walking speed, the risk of mortality decreased by 6% (HR = 0.94; 0.92–0.96). There was an inverse nonlinear dose–response relationship between them when participants' age was larger than 65 years, but linear dose–response relationships were detected in both the timed walking speed test and self-reported walking speed measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]