The Relationship between Safety and Walking Behavior of Older Adults in China

Abstract

Perception of safety has been reported as a factor that can impact the walking behaviour of older adults. This paper aimed to investigate the association between the Perception of crime, traffic and walking behaviour of older adults in a small city in China. The subjective method of the questionnaire was used to collect the data on Perception of traffic, crime and walking activities in ChenZhou. The multiple regression analysis methods was used to test the relationship between the perception of traffic, perception of crime and walking activities of seniors. The result showed that perception of traffic was positively related to total walking and recreational walking. In contrast, perception of crime was found to be negatively associated with recreational walking, even though the correlations were very weak. No relationship was found between transportation walking and safety. And there was no relationship between perception of crime and total walking behaviour. Although the result of this study demonstrated that there was a weak positive relationship between safety and walking of seniors, it still cannot ignore the perception of traffic as it was an essential factor in increasing the total walking and recreational walking. And perception of crime can decrease recreational walking.