Are People Living in Walkable Areas Healthier and More Satisfied with Life?

Oishi, Shigehiro; Saeki, Masao; Axt, Jordan

doi:10.1111/aphw.12058

Cited by 15 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…However, it can be argued that neither study has adopted a real multilevel perspective, as both have matched environment‐level data to individual data – with the potential of committing an ecological fallacy (Robinson, ). As environmental features such as walkability have a direct influence on health and health behaviours (e.g., Oishi, Saeki, & Axt, ), it is likely that people living in the same area are more similar to each other than people in different areas: Living in a resource‐rich environment should make the self‐regulation of health behaviour (e.g., following through on intentions) easier than living in a resource‐poor environment. This suggests that we need to take the clustering of participants in ecological entities such as neighbourhoods or cities into account when examining such cross‐level interactions.…”

Section: Environment‐level Facets Of Ses – Need For a Multilevel Resementioning

confidence: 99%

Socio‐economic status and theories of health behaviour: Time to upgrade a control variable

Schüz

2017

British J Health Psychol

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EditorialSocio-economic status and theories of health behaviour: Time to upgrade a control variable Large epidemiological studies consistently show that health is unequally distributed (Mackenbach et al., 2008), with groups of lower socio-economic status (SES) facing both earlier mortality and worse overall health.The causes underlying health inequalities are multifaceted and include considerable SES-related differences in health behaviours (Stringhini et al., 2010). For example, people of lower SES engage in less recreational physical activity (Gidlow, Johnston, Crone, Ellis, & James, 2006), consume alcohol in a more risky manner (Bloomfield, Grittner, Kramer, & Gmel, 2006), smoke more (Marmot, 2006), and participate in less screening or prevention programmes (Solmi et al., 2015). However, despite this wealth of epidemiologic evidence on the role of SES for health and health behaviours, psychological research in general and research in health psychology in particular has not been engaging with SES in great or sufficient detail (Sweeney, 2015).This editorial aims at outlining where and how SES could be better integrated in research using theories of health behaviour in order to improve our understanding of the social stratification of health and health behaviours. SES in research using theories of health behaviourAccording to a recent scoping review across the social and behavioural sciences (Davis, Campbell, Hildon, Hobbs, & Michie, 2015), seven theories (nine if TRA and SLT are counted separately) dominate health behaviour researchthe Transtheoretical Model

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Section: Environment‐level Facets Of Ses – Need For a Multilevel Resementioning

confidence: 99%

Socio‐economic status and theories of health behaviour: Time to upgrade a control variable

Schüz

2017

British J Health Psychol

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“…Few studies have investigated neighbourhood walkability and subjective measures of well-being. These associations were examined in recent analyses of the US Behavioral Risk Factors Surveillance Survey, which found that those who lived in more walkable neighbourhoods were more likely to report improved overall general health, but were less satisfied with life [11]. Importantly, cross-sectional and quasi-longitudinal analyses of movers and non-movers that were able to account for neighbourhood preferences and individual attitudes found that neighbourhood design characteristics are associated with physical activity [12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparing the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index with the Google Street View Measure of Vegetation to Assess Associations between Greenness, Walkability, Recreational Physical Activity, and Health in Ottawa, Canada

Villeneuve

Ysseldyk

Root

et al. 2018

IJERPH

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The manner in which features of the built environment, such as walkability and greenness, impact participation in recreational activities and health are complex. We analyzed survey data provided by 282 Ottawa adults in 2016. The survey collected information on participation in recreational physical activities by season, and whether these activities were performed within participants’ neighbourhoods. The SF-12 instrument was used to characterize their overall mental and physical health. Measures of active living environment, and the satellite derived Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Google Street View (GSV) greenness indices were assigned to participants’ residential addresses. Logistic regression and least squares regression were used to characterize associations between these measures and recreational physical activity, and self-reported health. The NDVI was not associated with participation in recreational activities in either the winter or summer, or physical or mental health. In contrast, the GSV was positively associated with participation in recreational activities during the summer. Specifically, those in the highest quartile spent, on average, 5.4 more hours weekly on recreational physical activities relative to those in the lowest quartile (p = 0.01). Active living environments were associated with increased utilitarian walking, and reduced reliance on use of motor vehicles. Our findings provide support for the hypothesis that neighbourhood greenness may play an important role in promoting participation in recreational physical activity during the summer.

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“…The concept of walkability has been gaining increased attention by scholars, city authorities, social movements and initiatives, and urban planners in the last few decades. A walkable built environment has numerous positive effects on residents' well-being: it increases the number of walking trips (Cerin et al, 2007;Manaugh and El-Geneidy, 2011;Weinberger and Sweet, 2012) and thus enhances physical activity and health (Oishi et al, 2015;Rundle et al, 2016;Saelens et al, 2003); enhances life satisfaction (Cao, 2016;Besta, 2016, 2014); the level of social capital (Rogers et al, 2011); and residents' creativity (Oppezzo and Schwartz, 2014). Among many walking needs, which range from feasibility to pleasurability (Alfonzo, 2005), good spatial accessibility from origins to destinations is found to be one of the most important, and it has been shown to influence the decision to walk over other transport modes (Boisjoly et al, 2018;Frank and Engelke, 2005;Giles-Corti et al, 2005;Giles-Corti and Donovan, 2002;Greenwald and Boarnet, 2001;Lund, 2003;Moudon et al, 2006;Owen et al, 2004;Reyer et al, 2014;Shriver, 1997).…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling walking accessibility: A case study of Ljubljana, Slovenia

Tiran

Lakner

Drobne

2019

Moravian Geographical Reports

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Walkable access is recognised as one of the most important factors for deciding to walk instead of using other modes of transport. Distance has been less accurately taken into consideration in previous walking accessibility measures, however, as they are often based on an isotropic approach or on a fixed distance threshold. The objective of this paper is to present a method of modelling continuous walking accessibility to different amenities in a city, with an integrated network-based and distance-decay approach, applied to a case study of the city of Ljubljana, Slovenia. The approach is based on a web survey to obtain data on acceptable walking distances to different types of amenities. Several distance decay functions were analysed for each type of amenity from the cumulative frequency of responses. The best fitting functions were used to model the walking accessibility surfaces for individual amenities in the network, representing five domains (retail, services, recreation, education and transportation) and an overall walking accessibility index. Despite certain limitations and a further need to assess the validity of the methods, our distance-decay network-based approach is more accurate than the isotropic or even network-based modelling of walking distances in continuous or threshold approaches, as it enables the researcher to take into account the differences in propensities to walk to different amenities. The results can be used by city authorities and planners for implementing actions to improve walking accessibility in the most problematic areas.

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Are People Living in Walkable Areas Healthier and More Satisfied with Life?

Cited by 15 publications

References 61 publications

Socio‐economic status and theories of health behaviour: Time to upgrade a control variable

Socio‐economic status and theories of health behaviour: Time to upgrade a control variable

Comparing the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index with the Google Street View Measure of Vegetation to Assess Associations between Greenness, Walkability, Recreational Physical Activity, and Health in Ottawa, Canada

Modelling walking accessibility: A case study of Ljubljana, Slovenia

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