Abstract
BackgroundThe aim of this systematic review was to examine gender differences in walking for leisure, transport and in total in adults living in high-income countries, and to assess whether gender differences in walking practices change across the life-course.MethodsA systematic literature search was conducted of publications dated 1995 to 2015. Papers providing quantitative data on participation in walking of both men and women aged at least 18 years in a high-income country were screened for the quality of the data on gender differences in walking. Data were extracted and results were synthesised using forest plots and narrative summary.ResultsThirty-six studies were included in the review: 18 reported on walking for leisure, 16 on walking for transport (in total, or for particular purposes), and 14 on total walking. Most (33) studies provided data comparing the proportion of men and women who walked (at all or for a minimum duration) over a defined period, usually one week. There was consistent evidence that more women than men walk for leisure, although effect sizes were small. However, this effect varies by age: more younger women than younger men walk for leisure, but the gender difference diminishes with age and appears to reverse in the oldest age groups. Taking all ages together, there was no consistent gender difference in walking for transport or in total walking, although the small number of studies reporting on walking to undertake errands suggested that more women than men walk for this purpose.ConclusionsWhile there is little evidence that levels of total walking consistently vary by gender, our findings suggest that there are consistent gender differences in participation in walking for some purposes, including for leisure, and that there are gender differences in the impact of age on walking. We conclude that more research is needed to improve our understanding of how walking fits into the lives of women and men across the life-course, especially in relation to gender differences in the impact of aging on walking.Prospero registrationPROSPERO registration number: CRD42015025961.
Highlights
The aim of this systematic review was to examine gender differences in walking for leisure, transport and in total in adults living in high-income countries, and to assess whether gender differences in walking practices change across the life-course
Just over half of the eligible studies were excluded because the information they provided on gender differences in walking was deemed to be of low quality for a variety of reasons, including lack of clarity or omission in reporting study details, inadequate measures of walking or inappropriate use of parametric statistical methods
We did not identify risk of bias specific to particular studies, but all included studies assessed walking by self-report and it is possible that the self-reports of men and women in relation to walking are subject to different biases
Summary
The aim of this systematic review was to examine gender differences in walking for leisure, transport and in total in adults living in high-income countries, and to assess whether gender differences in walking practices change across the life-course. In contrast to other forms of physical activity, walking has the advantage of being accessible to most people. For these reasons, promotion of walking has become more prominent in public health campaigns [4,5,6]. With rare exceptions [7, 8], the possibility of gender differences in walking practices has largely been ignored, but an understanding of whether, how and why walking practices differ between men and women would help inform such campaigns. Within the widely used ecological model of health behaviour, gender is usually identified as a personal characteristic that may modify, at the individual level, the impact of wider social and environmental influences on behaviours such as walking [9, 10]. Gender is social construct with greater power than this [8, 11]
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