Open Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2020, 10, 277-287 https://www.scirp.org/journal/ojpm ISSN Online: 2162-2485 ISSN Print: 2162-2477 DOI: 10.4236/ojpm.2020.1011020 Nov. 18, 2020 277 Open Journal of Preventive Medicine Factors Relevant to Knee Pain among Independent Community-Dwelling Older Adults: A Complete Cross-Sectional Study Shinichiro Sato 1 , Yuta Nemoto 2 , Noriko Takeda 3 , Yoshinori Kitabatake 4 , Kazushi Maruo 5 , Takashi Arao 6 1 Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Human Arts and Sciences, Saitama, Japan 2 Research Team for Social Participation and Community Health, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Tokyo, Japan 3 Division of Liberal Arts, Kogakuin University, Tokyo, Japan 4 Department of Health Sciences, Saitama Prefectural University, Saitama, Japan 5 Faculty of Medicine, University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan 6 Meiji Yasuda Life Foundation of Health and Welfare, Tokyo, Japan Abstract Objective: Knee pain is commonly observed among older adults. Therefore, the prevention of knee pain in older adults is a major public health issue. This study aimed to clarify factors relevant to knee pain among older adults. Me- thods: This study targeted all independent older adults (N = 6661) living in a local municipality in Japan. Participants’ health status and lifestyle habits were surveyed using a questionnaire. The survey was conducted from 15 Jan- uary to 14 February 2016. Relationships between knee pain and physical ac- tivity, sitting time, nutrition, drinking, smoking, or body mass index (BMI) were examined using logistic regression analysis. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) adjusted for several confounding factors were cal- culated. Results: Older adults of 5311 responded to the questionnaire and 1843 reported knee pain. The prevalence of knee pain was 34.8%. Knee pain was significantly associated with BMI (OR: 0.60, 95% CI: 0.51 - 0.69, P < 0.001 in the group of normal range, OR: 0.38, 95% CI: 0.29 - 0.51, P < 0.001 in the group of <18.0), nutrition status (OR: 0.63, 95% CI: 0.54 - 0.75, P < 0.001), and physical activity (OR: 0.81, 95% CI: 0.71 - 0.92, P = 0.001). Con- clusions: This study suggests that one in three independently-living older adults experiences chronic knee pain and that physical activity, BMI, and nu- tritional status are associated with knee pain. Keywords Complete Survey, Physical Activity, Prevalence Rate, Sitting Time How to cite this paper: Sato, S., Nemoto, Y., Takeda, N., Kitabatake, Y., Maruo, K. and Arao, T. (2020) Factors Relevant to Knee Pain among Independent Communi- ty-Dwelling Older Adults: A Complete Cross-Sectional Study. Open Journal of Preventive Medicine, 10, 277-287. https://doi.org/10.4236/ojpm.2020.1011020 Received: September 25, 2020 Accepted: November 15, 2020 Published: November 18, 2020 Copyright © 2020 by author(s) and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open Access