Older Public Housing Tenants’ Capabilities for Physical Activity Described Using Walk-Along Interviews in Montreal, Canada

Abstract

Older public housing tenants experience various factors associated with physical inactivity and are locally dependent on their environment to support their physical activity. A better understanding of the person-environment fit for physical activity could highlight avenues to improve access to physical activity for this subgroup of the population. The aim of this study was to evaluate older public housing tenants’ capabilities for physical activity in their residential environment using a socioecological approach. We conducted individual semi-structured walk-along interviews with 26 tenants (female = 18, male = 8, mean age = 71.96 years old). Living in housing developments exclusively for adults aged 60 years or over in three neighborhoods in the city of Montreal, Canada. A hybrid thematic analysis produced five capabilities for physical activity: Political, financial, social, physical, and psychological. Themes spanned across ecological levels including individual, public housing, community, and government. Tenant committees appear important to physical activity promotion. Participants called for psychosocial interventions to boost their capability for physical activity as well as greater implication from the housing authority and from government. Results further support a call for intersectoral action to improve access to physical activity for less affluent subgroups of the population such as older public housing tenants.

What Do We Know about the Use of the Walk-along Method to Identify the Perceived Neighborhood Environment Correlates of Walking Activity in Healthy Older Adults: Methodological Considerations Related to Data Collection—A Systematic Review

“…The publication year of the 31 included studies ranged from 2012 [5] to 2022 [9]. One study (3%) was published in 2012 [5], 1 (3%) in 2014 [47], 1 (3%) in 2015 [48], 5 (16%) in 2016 [32,46,[49][50][51], 1 (3%) in 2017 [52], 5 (16%) in 2018 [23,30,37,38,53], 3 (10%) in 2019 [6,25,54], 4 (13%) in 2020 [7,[55][56][57], 9 (29%) in 2021 [8,10,35,36,[58][59][60][61][62], and 1 (3%) in 2022 [9].…”

Messung von Handlungsmöglichkeiten (capabilities) für körperliche Aktivität: Entwicklung und Erprobung eines Messinstruments für ältere Menschen

“…Der Vorteil des Capability-Ansatzes ist, sowohl persönliche als auch verhältnisbezogene Faktoren gemeinsam zu beleuchten und damit das Zusammenspiel zwischen Mensch und Umwelt für die Prävention zu erschließen. Saint-Onge et al (2021), die kürzlich eine qualitative Studie zu capabilities und Bewegung mit Senior:innen aus Sozialwohnungen in Kanada durchgeführt haben, sprechen vom „interplay of person-environment fit“ 36 .…”

Systematic Review of the Use of the Walk-Along Interview Method to Assess Factors, Facilitators and Barriers Related to Perceived Neighborhood Environment and Walking Activity in Healthy Older Adults

“…Among the 31 articles included in this systematic review, 20 (65%) studies applied the WAI in individuals' own neighborhoods [13,[29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47]; 1 (3%) study applied the WAI in subway stations in high-density areas [48]; 5 (16%) studies applied the WAI in parks and/or green spaces [49][50][51][52][53]; 2 (6%) studies applied the WAI in smart cities [54,55]; 2 (6%) studies applied the WAI in community housing [14,56]; and 1 (3%) study applied the WAI in a residential care facility [57].…”