International variation in neighborhood walkability, transit, and recreation environments using geographic information systems: the IPEN adult study

Abstract

BackgroundThe World Health Organization recommends strategies to improve urban design, public transportation, and recreation facilities to facilitate physical activity for non-communicable disease prevention for an increasingly urbanized global population. Most evidence supporting environmental associations with physical activity comes from single countries or regions with limited variation in urban form. This paper documents variation in comparable built environment features across countries from diverse regions.MethodsThe International Physical Activity and the Environment Network (IPEN) study of adults aimed to measure the full range of variation in the built environment using geographic information systems (GIS) across 12 countries on 5 continents. Investigators in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, China, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States followed a common research protocol to develop internationally comparable measures. Using detailed instructions, GIS-based measures included features such as walkability (i.e., residential density, street connectivity, mix of land uses), and access to public transit, parks, and private recreation facilities around each participant’s residential address using 1-km and 500-m street network buffers.ResultsEleven of 12 countries and 15 cities had objective GIS data on built environment features. We observed a 38-fold difference in median residential densities, a 5-fold difference in median intersection densities and an 18-fold difference in median park densities. Hong Kong had the highest and North Shore, New Zealand had the lowest median walkability index values, representing a difference of 9 standard deviations in GIS-measured walkability.ConclusionsResults show that comparable measures can be created across a range of cultural settings revealing profound global differences in urban form relevant to physical activity. These measures allow cities to be ranked more precisely than previously possible. The highly variable measures of urban form will be used to explain individuals’ physical activity, sedentary behaviors, body mass index, and other health outcomes on an international basis. Present measures provide the ability to estimate dose–response relationships from projected changes to the built environment that would otherwise be impossible.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1476-072X-13-43) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Active commuting of the inhabitants of Liberec city in low and high walkability areas

“…This is consistent with the findings and results gathered in other studies (Christiansen, Madsen, Schipperijn, Ersbøll, & Troelsen, 2014;De Meester et al, 2012;Frank et al, 2010;Freeman et al, 2013). Adams et al (2014) concluded that areas with high walkability are characterized by an accumulation of a large number of inhabitants and higher commuting accessibility (e.g., Hong Kong or Bogota in Colombia).…”

“…Most studies assess walkability according to street connectivity, residential density and the land-use mix, which experts believe to be most influential. Originally, these correlates were analyzed separately (Boarnet & Sarmiento, 1998), although they were later grouped into a single "walkability index" (Adams et al, 2014;Frank et al, 2010;Frank et al, 2005).…”

Physical activity in relation to urban environments in 14 cities worldwide: a cross-sectional study

“…The diversity of the study cities in climate, demographics, 10 and built environments has been documented in previous publications. 18 Present results suggest systematic principles of environments that support physical activity apply on a global scale. 19 Generalisable associations with physical activity were also reported in analyses of selfreported environment measures in the same study.…”

“…A description of GIS methods and variables, examples of data sources for each country, comparability evaluations, and descriptive results of variation in GIS-based environmental variables within and across cities has been published. 18 The following variables were adequately comparable across cities and were used in analyses: net residential density, street intersection density, retail and civic land use ratio to buffer area (access to common destinations), public 43 (12) 43 (13) 42 (13) 46 (12) 39 (14) 40 (14) 42 (13) 42 (13) 43 (12) 42 (11) 40 (12) 43 (12) 44 (13) 44 (11) 47 ( transport density, public park density, and distance to nearest transport. Table 2 provides definitions of variables and key terms.…”

“…Templates were developed to guide international teams on constructing comparable GIS variables. 18 The templates were also used to document protocol adherence, which allowed for comparability evaluations. A description of GIS methods and variables, examples of data sources for each country, comparability evaluations, and descriptive results of variation in GIS-based environmental variables within and across cities has been published.…”