Demand response to improved walking infrastructure: A study into the economics of walking and health behaviour change

Neighbourhood perceptions and older adults’ wellbeing: Does walking explain the relationship in deprived urban communities?

“…Regeneration and policy initiatives that seek to improve the quality of the neighbourhood environment should be designed to increase walking (Longo et al, 2015), and to better mental wellbeing among older residents in deprived communities. However, our results suggest caution should be exercised in assuming that changes to the neighbourhood environment will lead to changes in walking frequency and subsequently wellbeing among ageing populations in deprived communities.…”

A Systematic Review Exploring the Economic Valuation of Accessing and Using Green and Blue Spaces to Improve Public Health

“…The promotion of PA in local communities is increasingly explored to assess if changes in neighbourhood quality could transform health behaviours among the public. The value and demand for walking was examined by Longo et al, 2015 [32] to investigate if changes in neighbourhood characteristics could improve walkability, thus stimulating alterations in health behaviours. Taking a discrete choice experiment (DCE) approach and using compensating variation techniques, data was collected by means of face-to-face interviews from a sample of 1209 respondents over a 12-month period.…”

“…Individual, social and physical environmental factors all have an interrelated role to play in promoting and increasing levels of PA. Research suggests potential health impacts have a probable cost-effectiveness ratio of £4469 per disability adjusted life year (DALY) [31]. Evidence of changes in the quality of neighbourhood characteristics suggest that improvements to local environments can increase walkability and could be a cost-effective way to increase PA levels, with demands for walkable environments estimated at £13.65 per person per week or £710 per person annually to instigate a policy change [32]. The current available evidence that connects nature with health and wellbeing are not fittingly incorporated into policy developments [24].…”

“…Theme 2: Economic evaluation of green spaces. Six papers were included in this theme, which explored the economic evaluation of green spaces [32,44,45,50,52,53]. The subthemes of urban/built environments and rural/ natural environments were developed from exploration of the literature.…”

Design of pedestrian network friendliness maps

“…Since infrastructural improvements are known to effectively promote an increase in active traveling (see e.g. Panter et al, 2016;Longo et al, 2015), the WF index concept effectively helps identifying opportunities for such improvements, in a way which considers not just infrastructure condition but also, and perhaps more importantly, its impact on pedestrian accessibility.…”