A GIS based approach to neighbourhood physical environment and walking among adults in Colombo municipal council area, Sri Lanka

Shreenika De Silva Weliange,Dulitha Fernando,Shanthi Withanage,Jagath Gunatilake

doi:10.1186/s12889-021-10983-7

Shreenika De Silva Weliange, Dulitha Fernando + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-10983-7

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Abstract

BackgroundPhysical Activity (PA) promotes health and wellbeing and walking is one of the easiest and commonest way to incorporate activity into everyday life. This study examined the association between the objectively measured neighbourhood physical environment and walking among the adults in Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) area in Sri Lanka.MethodsA cross sectional study was carried out and primary data collection carried out to assess walking, socio-demographic characteristics and geo location of residence. Secondary data was obtained to assess neighbourhood environment from existing spatially referenced data from the survey department of Sri Lanka. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) was used to calculate density measures (residential density, land use, connectivity and access) and distance measures, which were then correlated with walking.ResultsA sample consisted of 284 adults aged 29–59 years with a mean age of 40.6 (SD,10.9) years. The total mean minutes walked a week was 175.8 min with a standard deviation of 214.0. The mean and the standard deviations of walking per week for transportation and leisure were 158.4 (SD,196.6) and 17.5 (SD,70.1) respectively. Residential density measures, building foot print area, length of major roads, number of intersections, number of bus stops, and distance to nearest major roads showed significant moderate degree of correlations with total minutes of walked per week, (p < 0.001). These results were similar with walking for transportation.ConclusionThere is indication that neighbourhood features are associated with walking among the adults in the CMC area using secondary data on physical environment. This paves way for further exploration to understand the relationship between neighbourhood physical environment and walking which could be used for effective interventions to promote walking.

Highlights

Physical Activity (PA) promotes health and wellbeing and walking is one of the easiest and commonest way to incorporate activity into everyday life
The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between neighbourhood environment and walking among the adults in Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) area in Sri Lanka
Design and setting This study to explore the relationship of walking with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) based neighbourhood environment was a subcomponent of a cross sectional study conducted in the district of Colombo with a sample of 1320 to assess the prevalence and correlates of PA, reporting that 79.4% walked for transport and only a mere 14.5% walked for leisure [7]

Summary

Introduction

Physical Activity (PA) promotes health and wellbeing and walking is one of the easiest and commonest way to incorporate activity into everyday life. In describing the factors in the built environment for PA and walking, measures such as residential density, land use, intersection density, street connectivity and access and distance to facility is considered important [8]. A highly connected neighbourhood provides more route options for travellers and shortens trip distance, thereby influencing people to use non-motorized forms of transportation. Many environment attributes such as street connectivity, good access to destination such as to recreational facility and public transport have shown relationship with walking in the previous studies [11,12,13,14,15,16,17]

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