Abstract
There is growing evidence of an association between the built environment and walking activity, but knowledge of street microenvironmental factors and older adults’ walking is limited and inconsistent. We used a socio-ecological model as the theoretical framework for this study, aiming to investigate longitudinally the important influences of the street microenvironment on older people’s walking by manipulated street photographs and whether there are different groups of older people with different environmental preferences, and to determine the influence of environmental factors in the socio-ecological model. The clustering analysis method was used to divide the samples into four groups, and those four subgroups were put in a comparative analysis regarding their street environments by methods of semantic differential (SD). The preferences of various subgroups were checked by the variance analysis and post hoc tests, and the structural equation model (SEM) was applied to discuss the relations of correlation and influence among each factor. The results showed that “parking on the sidewalk” was rated the lowest in the pre-intervention photos, and “shaded” and “hedge” were rated the highest in the post-intervention photos, and the environmental requirements were different for the older, poorer and higher income and education subgroups. There was a significant positive relationship between residential status and architectural interventions as well as self-efficacy and physical condition. These findings suggest that when developing environmental interventions to promote walking among older adults, priority should be given to those factors that need to be improved most. In addition, attention should be paid to the differences in walking needs among different groups of older adults, with particular attention on the impact of self-selected living environments on street-level environmental interventions.
Highlights
According to statistics newly released by the National Bureau of Statistics, the population of people over 60 years old in China has reached 264 million, which accounts for 18.7% of the total national population (DB/OL 2021)
The proportion of female testees in the sample was 69%, which accounted for the vast majority of testees
Our study found that the modification of street microenvironments should give priority to no parking on sidewalks and the improvements of shady areas and hedges beside the street, so as to increase the ambulatory activities of older adults
Summary
According to statistics newly released by the National Bureau of Statistics, the population of people over 60 years old in China has reached 264 million, which accounts for 18.7% of the total national population (DB/OL 2021). Increasing evidence has suggested that walking activity is the best form of exercise for older adults, as walking as an activity is healthy (De Fré et al 2009; Manson et al 2002), convenient and popular among older adults (Murtagh et al 2010) It does not need special equipment or clothes and can be conducted at any time, either individually or in the company of others. It may be incorporated into daily activities (Hamdorf et al 2002; Tudor-Locke et al 2002) Due to their socio-economic attributes and physical function characteristics, walking activities in the daily life of the elderly mainly involves transportation walking in the process of daily life, such as shopping, picking up children and social interactions. It involves leisure walking as well as walking dogs and other activities for exercise (Jiang et al 2020)
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