Walk Score® and Its Associations with Older Adults' Health Behaviors and Outcomes.

Yung Liao,Chien-Yu Lin,Jong-Hwan Park,Bohyeon Kim,Yen-Ju Chen,Ting-Fu Lai

doi:10.3390/ijerph16040622

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the associations between Walk Score® and lifestyle behaviors and health outcomes in older Taiwanese adults. A nationwide survey was conducted through telephone-based interviews with older adults (65 years and older) in Taiwan. Data on Walk Score®, lifestyle behaviors (physical activity, sedentary behavior, healthy eating behavior, alcohol use, and smoking status), health outcomes (overweight/obesity, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease), and personal characteristics were obtained from 1052 respondents. A binary logistic regression adjusting for potential confounders was employed. None of the Walk Score® categories were related to the recommended levels of total physical activity. The categories “very walkable” and “walker’s paradise” were positively related to total sedentary time and TV viewing among older adults. No significant associations were found between Walk Score® and other lifestyle health behaviors or health outcomes. While Walk Score® was not associated with recommended levels of physical activity, it was positively related to prolonged sedentary time in the context of a non-Western country. The different associations between the walk score and health lifestyle behaviors and health outcomes in different contexts should be noted.

Highlights

There is overwhelming evidence of the role of the neighborhood environment in individuals’lifestyle behaviors and health outcomes [1,2]
No proportional differences were observed for total physical activity, driving time, healthy eating behavior, alcohol use, current smoking status, body mass index (BMI), hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases (CVD) across the walk score categories
The findings revealed that the walk score is not associated with physical activity recommendations, but positively related to prolonged sedentary time and TV viewing among older adults in the context of Taiwan

Summary

Introduction

There is overwhelming evidence of the role of the neighborhood environment in individuals’. Lifestyle behaviors and health outcomes [1,2]. The neighborhood built environment is important for older populations because they tend to spend most of their time in it as their mobility gradually declines with age [5]. Walkability, a key concept of the built environment, is the capacity of a neighborhood to support individuals’ lifestyle behaviors such as walking and physical activity [6]. Research has associated an increased duration of physical activity with a decreased risk of negative health outcomes such as being overweight [9], symptoms of depression [10,11], and overall mortality [12,13]

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