Neighborhood Walkability as a Predictor of Incident Hypertension in a National Cohort Study

Frontiers in Public Health

Suzanne E. Judd¹  Amit Patki¹  George Howard¹  Ninad S. Chaudhary²  Alana C. Jones²  Marguerite R. Irvin²  Virginia J. Howard²  Natalie Colabianchi³ 

[1] Department of Biostatistics, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, United States;Department of Epidemiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, United States;School of Kinesiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States;Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health (M.R.E.), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States;

关键词: walkability;    built environment;    hypertension;    REGARDS;    older adults;    neighborhood walkability;    neighborhood;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpubh.2021.611895

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

The built environment (BE) has been associated with health outcomes in prior studies. Few have investigated the association between neighborhood walkability, a component of BE, and hypertension. We examined the association between neighborhood walkability and incident hypertension in the REasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) Study. Walkability was measured using Street Smart Walk Score based on participants' residential information at baseline (collected between 2003 and 2007) and was dichotomized as more (score ≥70) and less (score <70) walkable. The primary outcome was incident hypertension defined at the second visit (collected between 2013 and 2017). We derived risk ratios (RR) using modified Poisson regression adjusting for age, race, sex, geographic region, income, alcohol use, smoking, exercise, BMI, dyslipidemia, diabetes, and baseline blood pressure (BP). We further stratified by race, age, and geographic region. Among 6,894 participants, 6.8% lived in more walkable areas and 38% (N = 2,515) had incident hypertension. In adjusted analysis, neighborhood walkability (Walk Score ≥70) was associated with a lower risk of incident hypertension (RR [95%CI]: 0.85[0.74, 0.98], P = 0.02), with similar but non-significant trends in race and age strata. In secondary analyses, living in a more walkable neighborhood was protective against being hypertensive at both study visits (OR [95%CI]: 0.70[0.59, 0.84], P < 0.001). Neighborhood walkability was associated with incident hypertension in the REGARDS cohort, with the relationship consistent across race groups. The results of this study suggest increased neighborhood walkability may be protective for high blood pressure in black and white adults from the general US population.

【 授权许可】

CC BY