Using an audit tool (MAPS Global) to assess the characteristics of the physical environment related to walking for transport in youth: reliability of Belgian data.

Ilse De Bourdeaudhuij,Carrie M. Geremia,Greet Cardon,Hannah Verhoeven,Sara D’Haese,Matthieu Lenoir,James F. Sallis,Delfien Van Dyck,Griet Vanwolleghem,Ariane Ghekiere

doi:10.1186/s12942-016-0069-1

Abstract

BackgroundThe aim was to examine inter-rater and alternate-form reliability of the Microscale Audit of Pedestrian Streetscapes (MAPS) Global tool to assess the physical environment along likely walking routes in Belgium.MethodsFor 65 children participating in the BEPAS-children study, routes between their individual homes and the nearest pre-defined destination were defined. Using MAPS Global, physical environmental characteristics of the routes were audited by 4 trained auditors (2 on-site, 2 online using Google Street View). Inter-rater reliability was studied for on-site and online ratings separately. Alternate-form reliability was examined by comparing on-site with online ratings.ResultsInter-rater reliability for on-site ratings was acceptable for 68% of items (kappa range 0.03–1.00) and for online ratings for 60% of items (kappa range −0.03 to 1.00). Acceptable alternate-form reliability was reported for 60% of items (kappa range −0.01 to 1.00/r range 0.31–1.00).ConclusionsMAPS Global can be used to assess the physical environment of potential walking routes. For areas where Google Street View imagery is widely covered and often updated, MAPS Global can be completed online.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12942-016-0069-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Highlights

The aim was to examine inter-rater and alternate-form reliability of the Microscale Audit of Pedestrian Streetscapes (MAPS) Global tool to assess the physical environment along likely walking routes in Belgium
Kappas or intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) values could not be calculated for 28 items and 26 items for the onsite and online ratings, respectively, as at least one of the items had no variance in responses
This study evaluated the inter-rater reliability and alternate-form reliability of the MAPS Global audit tool to assess the physical environment along potential walking routes in Belgium

Summary

Introduction

The aim was to examine inter-rater and alternate-form reliability of the Microscale Audit of Pedestrian Streetscapes (MAPS) Global tool to assess the physical environment along likely walking routes in Belgium. Observational audits have been used as an objective assessment method to provide more detailed information on micro-environmental factors (e.g., presence of speed bumps, quality of sidewalk and cycle facilities, characteristics of crossings, maintenance of buildings, presence of litter) that are hypothesized as relevant to active transport behaviors [9,10,11]. Observers are sometimes exposed to personal safety risks To overcome these limitations of on-site audit tools, several Google Street View-based audits have been developed [12, 14,15,16,17,18,19,20]. Completing a Google Street View-based audit is faster compared to on-site assessments, mainly due to travel time differences [12,13,14,15, 21]. Lower agreement between on-site and online assessments were reported for qualitative and more detailed data (e.g. sidewalk condition, aesthetics, physical disorder [litter]) or rapidly changing items (e.g. traffic volume) [12, 14, 15, 19, 20]

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