The cross-sectional analyses were performed on the baseline questionnaires from five prospective cohort studies conducted among former elite athletes from the rugby, football, ice hockey, Gaelic sports (football and hurling) and cricket. The participants fulfilled the following inclusion criteria at recruitment: (I) age of 50 years or younger, (II) male, (III) able to read and comprehend texts fluently in either in English, French or Spanish, and (IV) a member of the national rugby union players’ associations, the national footballers’ unions, national ice hockey players’ associations, South African cricketers’ association or Gaelic players’ association from Finland, France, Ireland, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and/or Switzerland. In our study, the definition for a former elite athlete was that he had trained to improve performances, to have competed in the upper national division or league and to have had training and competition as major activity (way of living) or focus of personal interest, devoting several hours in all or most of the days for these activities, and exceeding the time allocated to other types of professional or leisure activities .