Abstract
BackgroundUnderstanding the relationship between urban design and physical activity is a high priority. Different representations of land use diversity may impact the association between neighbourhood design and specific walking behaviours. This study examined different entropy based computations of land use mix (LUM) used in the development of walkability indices (WIs) and their association with walking behaviour.MethodsParticipants in the RESIDential Environments project (RESIDE) self-reported mins/week of recreational, transport and total walking using the Neighbourhood Physical Activity Questionnaire (n = 1798). Land use categories were incrementally added to test five different LUM models to identify the strongest associations with recreational, transport and total walking. Logistic regression was used to analyse associations between WIs and walking behaviour using three cut points: any (> 0 mins), ≥ 60 mins and ≥ 150 mins walking/week.ResultsParticipants in high (vs. low) walkable neighbourhoods reported up to almost twice the amount of walking, irrespective of the LUM measure used. However, different computations of LUM were found to be relevant for different types and amounts of walking (i.e., > 0, ≥ 60 or ≥ 150 mins/week). Transport walking (≥ 60 mins/week) had the strongest and most significant association (OR = 2.24; 95% CI:1.58-3.18) with the WI when the LUM included 'residential', 'retail', 'office', 'health, welfare and community', and 'entertainment, culture and recreation'. However, any (> 0 mins/week) recreational walking was more strongly associated with the WI (OR = 1.36; 95% CI:1.04-1.78) when land use categories included 'public open space', 'sporting infrastructure' and 'primary and rural' land uses. The observed associations were generally stronger for ≥ 60 mins/week compared with > 0 mins/week of transport walking and total walking but this relationship was not seen for recreational walking.ConclusionsVarying the combination of land uses in the LUM calculation of WIs affects the strength of relationships with different types (and amounts) of walking. Future research should examine the relationship between walkability and specific types and different amounts of walking. Our results provide an important first step towards developing a context-specific WI that is associated with recreational walking. Inherent problems with administrative data and the use of entropy formulas for the calculation of LUM highlight the need to explore alternative or complimentary measures of the environment.
Highlights
Understanding the relationship between urban design and physical activity is a high priority
Irrespective of the land use mix (LUM) measure used, our results show that residents living in high walkable neighbourhoods do more walking than those in low walkable environments and that walkability indices (WIs) are more strongly related to walking for transport than recreational walking
Our findings show that reporting more than an hour per week of transport walking had the strongest and most significant association with a WI that included ‘Residential’, ‘Retail’, ‘Office’, ‘Health, welfare and community’, and ’Entertainment, culture and recreation’, while doing any recreational walking was more strongly associated with a WI that included ‘Public open space’, ‘Sporting infrastructure’ and ‘Primary and rural’ land uses
Summary
Understanding the relationship between urban design and physical activity is a high priority. Different representations of land use diversity may impact the association between neighbourhood design and specific walking behaviours. Understanding the relationship between urban design and physical activity is a high priority for the prevention of chronic disease [1,2]. Identifying the specific characteristics of the urban environment that support or hinder people living an active lifestyle is important given the inadequate and declining levels of physical activity in both adults and children [4,5], increasing sedentary time related to electronic media use [6] and car travel times [7] and the rising level of obesity and non-communicable diseases [8,9]. There is a rapidly growing body of evidence investigating the relationship between attributes of the built environment and chronic disease risk factors
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