The association between sidewalk length and walking for different purposes in established neighborhoods

International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity

JC Herb Emery⁴  Anura Amarasinghe³  Elizabeth Geelhoed³  J Lennert Veerman¹  Stephen Begg⁵  Billie Giles-Corti²  Alan Shiell⁴  Gavin R McCormack⁴ 

[1] School of Population Health, The University of Queensland, Queensland 4072, Australia;McCaughey Centre, Melbourne School of Population Health, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia;School of Population Health, The University of Western Australia, Perth 6009, Australia;Department of Community Health Sciences, University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr NW, Calgary, AB, Canada, T2N1N4;Research and Economic Analysis Unit, Queensland Health, Queensland 4000, Australia

关键词: Sidewalks;    Exercise;    Walkability;    Urban form;    Pedestrian;   

Others  :  812118
DOI  :  10.1186/1479-5868-9-92

 received in 2011-11-01, accepted in 2012-07-18,  发布年份 2012

【 摘 要 】

Background

Walking in neighborhood environments is undertaken for different purposes including for transportation and leisure. We examined whether sidewalk availability was associated with participation in, and minutes of neighborhood-based walking for transportation (NWT) and recreation (NWR) after controlling for neighborhood self-selection.

Method

Baseline survey data from respondents (n = 1813) who participated in the RESIDential Environment (RESIDE) project (Perth, Western Australia) were used. Respondents were recruited based on their plans to move to another neighborhood in the following year. Usual weekly neighborhood-based walking, residential preferences, walking attitudes, and demographics were measured. Characteristics of the respondent’s baseline neighborhood were measured including transportation-related walkability and sidewalk length. A Heckman two-stage modeling approach (multivariate Probit regression for walking participation, followed by a sample selection-bias corrected OLS regression for walking minutes) estimated the relative contribution of sidewalk length to NWT and NWR.

Results

After adjustment, neighborhood sidewalk length and walkability were positively associated with a 2.97 and 2.16 percentage point increase in the probability of NWT participation, respectively. For each 10 km increase in sidewalk length, NWT increased by 5.38 min/wk and overall neighborhood-based walking increased by 5.26 min/wk. Neighborhood walkability was not associated with NWT or NWR minutes. Moreover, sidewalk length was not associated with NWR minutes.

Conclusions

Sidewalk availability in established neighborhoods may be differentially associated with walking for different purposes. Our findings suggest that large investments in sidewalk construction alone would yield small increases in walking.

【 授权许可】

   
2012 McCormack et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

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