Background: Over the past two decades, geographical accessibility of urban resources for population living in residential areas has received an increased focus in urban health studies. Operationalising and computing geographical accessibility measures depend on a set of four parameters, namely definition of residential areas, a method of aggregation, a measure of accessibility, and a type of distance. Yet, the choice of these parameters may potentially generate different results leading to significant measurement errors.

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Studies of inequalities in health between rural and urban settings have produced mixed and sometimes conflicting results, depending on the national setting of the study, the level of geographic detail used to define rural areas and the health indicators studied. By focusing on morbidity data from a national sample of individuals, this study aims to examine the extent of inequalities in health between urban and rural areas, as well as inequalities in health across rural areas of England. Multilevel analyses for poor self-rated health, overweight and obesity, and common mental disorders are reported for a sample of 30,776 individuals aged 18 years and older (obtained from the Health Survey for England years 2000-2003 combined) and distributed across 3645 small areas classed in four categories: two groups of urban areas (Greater London area or 'other cities') and two types of rural settings (semi-rural areas or villages). Results show that rural dwellers were significantly less likely than residents of urban areas to report their health as being fair or poor and to report common mental disorders, independent of their socio-demographic characteristics. However, as for urban settlements, there were significant variations in health across semi-rural areas and across villages, indicating the presence of health inequalities within rural settings in England. These inequalities were not fully explained by the individual composition of the areas or by the available measures of area socioeconomic conditions, indicating that in rural

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This paper examines the association between neighborhood active living potential and walking among middle-aged and older adults. A sample of 2,614 (61.1% women) persons aged 45 years or older and living in one of 112 census tracts in Montreal, Canada, were recruited between February and May of 2005 to participate in a 20-minute telephone survey. Data were linked to observational data on neighborhood active living potential in the 112 census tracts and analyzed through multilevel modeling. Greater density of destinations in the census tract was associated with greater likelihoods of walking for any reason at least 5 days per week for at least 30 minutes (odds ratio = 1.53, 95% confidence interval: 1.21, 1.94). Associations were attenuated but remained statistically significant after controlling for socioeconomic, health, lifestyle, and other physical activity characteristics. Sensitivity analyses showed that associations were robust across smaller and larger volumes of walking. No associations were found between dimensions of neighborhood active living potential and walking for recreational reasons. The authors conclude that a larger number and variety of neighborhood destinations in one's residential environment are associated with more walking and possibly more utilitarian walking among middle-aged or older adults.

Background: In health and place research, definitions of areas, area characteristics, and health outcomes should ideally be coherent with one another. Yet current approaches for delimiting areas mostly rely on spatial units "of convenience" such as census tracts. These areas may be homogeneous along socioeconomic conditions but heterogeneous along other environmental characteristics. This heterogeneity can lead to biased measurement of environment characteristics and misestimation of area effects on health. The objective of this study was to assess the soundness of census tracts as units of analysis for measuring the active living potential of environments, hypothesised to be associated with walking.

This study demonstrates that household crowding is a source of chronic stress among the Inuit of Nunavik. Differential housing conditions are shown to be a marker of health inequalities among this population. Housing conditions are a critical public health issue in many aboriginal communities that must be investigated further to inform healthy and sustainable housing strategies.