Condition Of Sidewalks Research Articles

Machine Learning Approach for Automated Detection of Irregular Walking Surfaces for Walkability Assessment with Wearable Sensor.

The walkability of a neighborhood impacts public health and leads to economic and environmental benefits. The condition of sidewalks is a significant indicator of a walkable neighborhood as it supports and encourages pedestrian travel and physical activity. However, common sidewalk assessment practices are subjective, inefficient, and ineffective. Current alternate methods for objective and automated assessment of sidewalk surfaces do not consider pedestrians' physiological responses. We developed a novel classification framework for the detection of irregular walking surfaces that uses a machine learning approach to analyze gait parameters extracted from a single wearable accelerometer. We also identified the most suitable location for sensor placement. Experiments were conducted on 12 subjects walking on good and irregular walking surfaces with sensors attached at three different locations: right ankle, lower back, and back of the head. The most suitable location for sensor placement was at the ankle. Among the five classifiers trained with gait features from the ankle sensor, Support Vector Machine (SVM) was found to be the most effective model since it was the most robust to subject differences. The model's performance was improved with post-processing. This demonstrates that the SVM model trained with accelerometer-based gait features can be used as an objective tool for the assessment of sidewalk walking surface conditions.

Active transportation and the built environment of a mid-size global south city

This study measures the existing condition of the built environment in the mid-size city of Khulna, Bangladesh and investigates its impacts on active transportation. Although the built environment is found to be rather conducive to active travel, the use of active transportation is depressed by the abundance of low-cost for-hire motorized vehicles and other structural and operational considerations. A Structural Equation Modeling framework is used to investigate the relationships between the built environment and active transportation. The model shows that compactness and the condition of sidewalks significantly increase walking propensity, while decreasing bicycling. Roadway infrastructure reduces walking and bicycling due to wider options of motorized vehicles. Additionally, longer travel distance and higher travel cost significantly reduce people's walking tendency. The study demonstrates that the built environment has a strong effect on active transportation, particularly on walking, compared to people's socioeconomic and personal attributes. The study findings are useful for policy formulation supporting a range of mobility options in mid-size Global South cities.

ANALYSIS FACILITIES PEDESTRIAN AND BICYCLE LANE LANES AS FACILITIES MODA TRANSPORTATION PUBLIC OF INTEGRATION IN BEKASI KOTA

<div class="WordSection1"><p>Analysis facilities pedestrian and bicycle lanes as facilities integration modes of public transport in the city of bekasi (Case Study: Bekasi Terminal and BTC Bus Stop). The city of bekasi located in west java province which has an area of areas 210,49 km2. The city central being as business and commerce , and activities services so that be an attraction for newcomers to look for a job and to shelter Terminal bekasi and bus stops btc is located in kecamatan bekasi timur , in the city of bekasi the rate of population growth in the year 2019 as much as 1.4 %. Walking is a mode of transportation. All buildings are provided for pedestrians in order to provide services to pedestrians so as to improve the smoothness, safety and comfort of pedestrians. The purpose of this study is to analyze the performance of pedestrian facilities in Bekasi Terminal and BTC bus stops. The method used is conducting direct field surveys and data processing using Microsoft Excel. The results of the author's research include the minimum width of the sidewalk in 2020 and 2025 of 1.5 - 1.6 meters and the service level of pedestrian facilities is classified as A, which means that pedestrians can walk freely, including being able to determine the direction of walking freely, at speed. relatively fast without causing interference between pedestrians. The existing condition of sidewalks in 2020, namely there are several obstacles for pedestrians such as the presence of street vendors, several motorbikes parked carelessly, buying and selling activities in markets close to Bekasi Terminal and limited integration facilities around the place. Planning that the authors do is to increase the width of the sidewalk to 3 meters, arrangement of closed drainage on the shoulder of the road, and the addition of street lighting facilities.</p></div>

Classification of the Sidewalk Condition Using Self-Supervised Transfer Learning for Wheelchair Safety Driving.

The demand for wheelchairs has increased recently as the population of the elderly and patients with disorders increases. However, society still pays less attention to infrastructure that can threaten the wheelchair user, such as sidewalks with cracks/potholes. Although various studies have been proposed to recognize such challenges, they mainly depend on RGB images or IMU sensors, which are sensitive to outdoor conditions such as low illumination, bad weather, and unavoidable vibrations, resulting in unsatisfactory and unstable performance. In this paper, we introduce a novel system based on various convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to automatically classify the condition of sidewalks using images captured with depth and infrared modalities. Moreover, we compare the performance of training CNNs from scratch and the transfer learning approach, where the weights learned from the natural image domain (e.g., ImageNet) are fine-tuned to the depth and infrared image domain. In particular, we propose applying the ResNet-152 model pre-trained with self-supervised learning during transfer learning to leverage better image representations. Performance evaluation on the classification of the sidewalk condition was conducted with 100% and 10% of training data. The experimental results validate the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed approach and bring future research directions.

РЕЗУЛЬТАТИ АНКЕТУВАННЯ ТЕРИТОРІАЛЬНИХ ГРОМАД ЩОДО ЇХ ІДЕНТИФІКАЦІЇ ТА ПОЗИЦІОНУВАННЯ ЗАДЛЯ ПІДВИЩЕННЯ ЯКОСТІ ЖИТТЯ НАСЕЛЕННЯ

The results of the territorial communities’ survey on their identification and positioning to improve the quality of life, which conducted among representatives of territorial communities of Luhansk and Donetsk regions located in the territories controlled by the Ukrainian government, were generalized. Its purpose was to determine the opinion of the respondents regarding the quality of life in the communi ties, their vision of the community uniqueness, as well as an idea of its image and positioning. Information collected on identifiers and signs of the communities’ attractiveness, the attitude of community residents to changes in the quality of life in the reform process, the desired directions for the future communities’ development, a vision of their positioning, the role of community branding and advertising. It was determined that the majority of the interviewed respondents positively assess the living environment of their communities, and not, however, associating changes for the better with decentralization. The subjective residents’ vision of their own community formed by the following main identifiers, such as the availability of administrative services, the condition of highways and sidewalks, infrastructure for recreation and leisure. The community attractiveness, according to the respondents, determined by the availability and level of administrative services, comfort of living and convenient transport location. The main obstacles for improving the quality of life, as well as the primary resources for its impro vement, are considered by the majority of respondents to be ineffective local authorities, as well as lack of initiative and activity of residents. More than 70% of respondents identified a negative impact on the development of the proximity of their community to the zone of armed conflict. The tendency of the respondents to focus more on problems than on the achievements of communities ascertained. In addition, trend of greater accentuation of respondents on the issues, as well as a certain indifference about the future of their community, in the process of determining the positioning of their own community and the vision of its image manifested most clearly in the number of uncertain options. It substantiates that the results obtained can be extrapolated to all communities in the region, and are the basis for optimizing the strategic planning process for the development of territorial communities, which will contribute to improving the life quality of population.

Identification of key determinants of travel satisfaction for developing policy instrument to improve quality of life: An analysis of commuting in Delhi

Commuting between an origin and destination pair is one of the most critical components of an individual's daily activity, and the associated trip satisfaction significantly influences a commuter's well-being. Owing to negative externalities associated with urban travel such as increased congestion, poor roadway infrastructure, inadequate and unreliable public transport system, safety and security concerns, a reduction in perceived trip satisfaction could be observed among Indian commuters. Thus, it is prudent to analyze commuters' perception towards associated trip satisfaction and related components for formulating policy instruments to improve commuters' experience. This paper identified the key determinants of perceived satisfaction related to different types of trips in the Indian capital New Delhi. A Travel survey questionnaire was designed to elicit commuters' perceived satisfaction associated with daily, work, and non-work trips. Based on 898 responses, a set of ordered logit models were estimated. It was found that socio-demographic factors such as gender and age, accessibility and built-environment characteristics such as streets' level of congestion, availability and existing condition of sidewalks, bus stop safety, and security were significant determinants of commuters' trip satisfaction. Results also indicated that the choice of mode and associated safety perception played a vital role in commuters' trip satisfaction levels. Public transport users were less satisfied compared to the car commuters for both work and non-work trips. Based on the findings, a set of policy measures such as illumination of roadways, reduction in street-congestion levels, up keeping existing sidewalks, improving public transportation accessibility, etc. could be implemented for enhancing the trip-satisfaction level of urban commuters belonging to a typical metropolitan city of a developing country like India.

Children's Active School Travel: Examining the Combined Perceived and Objective Built-Environment Factors from Space Syntax.

Increasing active school travel (AST) among children may provide the required level of daily physical activity and reduce the prevalence of obesity. Despite efforts to promote this mode, recent evidence shows that AST rates continue to decrease in suburban and urban areas alike. The aim of this research study, therefore, is to facilitate our understanding of how objective and perceived factors near the home influence children’s AST in an understudied city, İstanbul, Turkey. Using data from a cross-sectional sample of students aged 12–14 from 20 elementary schools (n = 1802) and consenting parents (n = 843), we applied a nominal logistic regression model to highlight important predictors of AST. The findings showed that street network connectivity (as measured by two novel space syntax measures, metric reach and directional reach) was the main deciding factor for active commuting to school, while parents’ perceptions of condition of sidewalks and shade-casting street trees were moderately significant factors associated with AST. Overall, this study demonstrated the significance of spatial structure of street network around the homes in the potential for encouraging AST, and more importantly, the need to consider objective and perceived environmental attributes when strategizing means to increase this mode choice and reduce ill-health among children.

INVESTIGATION AND OPTIMISATION OF A SIDEWALK RESTORATION PROGRAM IN HUMAN TRANSPORTATION IN AN ANCIENT SUSTAINABLE CITY

Sidewalks play a very important role in the dynamism maintenance as well as the development of cities especially historic cities. To ensure the maintaining service quality of sidewalks, the first step is to prevent distress occurrence, thereafter repair the distress that occurred in the sidewalks. In historic cities, the lack of suitable sidewalks for walking led to the gradual elimination of pedestrians. Yazd is a historic city recorded as a world heritage site by UNESCO, which attracts many tourists from all over the world every year. Therefore, preserving the quality of sidewalks in this city is of great importance. In this research, the SCI method was used to investigate the condition of the sidewalks in the studied area. This method is similar to the pavement condition index (PCI) method. The results showed that the condition of sidewalks in the studied area is in the range of 55-70, which is relative.

Sustainable and equitable financing for sidewalk maintenance

In many communities sidewalks are discontinuous, inaccessible to those with physical disabilities, and poorly maintained. Correcting these problems would be a first step in providing infrastructure to achieve the active travel and related transportation goals of many communities. One nearly universal challenge to maintaining sidewalks is an adequate, sustainable and equitable source of funding. Municipalities typically maintain and repair their streets; however, most require residents to maintain and repair public sidewalks adjacent to their property. These policies are difficult to enforce and may be at least partly responsible for the poor condition of many sidewalks. They also place a relatively high cost on low-income households. We evaluate three sidewalk maintenance funding alternatives for public sidewalks in Albuquerque, New Mexico: increasing the gross receipts tax (GRT), the gasoline excise tax, or the property tax. We show that any of the alternatives would perform better than policies that require adjacent property owners to maintain public sidewalks. They are generally less regressive, cost less on average, and would allow municipalities to manage sidewalk assets more effectively. The differences between the alternatives are relatively minor compared to their benefits. Additional considerations should include how the revenue from each tax may change over time.

The “Garbological Mission” of Kharkiv’s Municipal Self-Government in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries

The article analyzes the evolution of waste disposal practices in the activities of Kharkiv’s municipal self-government. At the end of the 19th century, keeping the urban space clean was still primarily the responsibility of homeowners. The city government issued regulatory decrees and the police monitored their implementation. For their part, homeowners hired private nightmen to remove garbage to dumps. The study clarifies the procedure for organizing the solid waste processing cycle. During this period, rag and bone collectors were important agents of waste utilization. Companies of these peculiar professionals sorted garbage and prepared it for further processing. At the turn of the 20th century, active industrial development and urbanization led to the devaluation of the secondary materials market and the worsening of the sanitary and epidemiological conditions in the city. The article delves into the details of the formation of the new garbological strategy of the municipal self-government and traces the changes in how members of the city council and engineers viewed the development of this industry. The city authorities revised their approach to keeping Kharkiv’s environment in order. New special departments inspected the condition and cleanliness of streets, sidewalks, squares, and sewers. The first significant technological component of the waste disposal infrastructure was a water supply system. The development of this network allowed the municipal government to begin creating a closed cycle of liquid waste filtration. Meanwhile, the construction of a sewer system did not solve all the problems of cleaning up Kharkiv. In the 1910s, the city authorities set up regular municipal solid waste caravans. During this period, a waste utilization plant was opened, not only contributing to the liberation of the city from animal waste, but also doing anti-epidemic and anti-epizootic work. The author concludes that during the period under consideration Kharkiv’s authorities addressed the new challenge to the community by implementing modern garbological projects and waste disposal methods.

The Effect of the Abuses of Sidewalks on Walkability in the Residential Areas of Sulaimaniyah City

The sidewalk has a great importance as a key component and main complement to roads and streets in the cities generally and residential areas and neighborhoods in particular. These sidewalks constitute the main walking environment in the residential neighborhoods and the link between houses and residential buildings on one hand, and the streets and corridors of vehicles' movements on the other hand. In order to improve the walking environment in the residential areas, the specifications and the designs of these sidewalks should meet various requirements for the pedestrians, including the sense of safety, comfort and ease of movement. Many of residential areas in Iraqi cities suffer from weak sidewalks design, which has led to deterioration of the ability of walking on .This research attempts specifically to study the condition of sidewalks in some of the residential areas in the city of Sulaimani; focuses on the problem of poor sidewalks' conditions in the residential areas in general and the inability to use for safely walking in particular. Assuming that the non-compliance with the municipal regulations and abusing them by the users are the main reasons for the deterioration of sidewalks' conditions and inadequacy for walking. The research aims to find out the extent of the impact of these violations in disrupting the ability to walk in those pathways. The study methodology is a field surveying for the current state of sidewalks in these residential areas and comparing them with the available international standards and municipal regulations.

Health Impacts and Assessment from BRT and Complete Streets: Mexico City's Line 5 Metrobus Corridor

Cities today are host to myriad public health problems related to transport — unnecessary traffic crashes and pedestrian deaths, polluted air and sedentary lifestyles, that can cut lives short, reduce economic productivity, and harm overall quality of life. This presentation describes an assessment of major health issues before and after the implementation of the 27-km Metrobus Line 5 BRT corridor in Mexico City. Opened in November, 2015, the project includes 50 stations and serves approximately 200,000 passengers per day, with a dedicated BRT lane, completely reconstructed carriageways, new sidewalks with green features, improved pedestrian crossings and access to a central green median, and a protected bicycle lane. The previous road only offered small microbuses and a road design that lacked facilities for active transport. The World Resources Institute and other organizations supported the city in planning and designing the corridor, including road safety audits, resident surveys and operations support. Ex-ante studies were used as health impacts assessments to offer insights into the project. In addition, ex-post studies were carried out with regard to road fatalities and serious injuries, physical activity rates of residents in catchment areas, and personal exposure to air pollutants on the corridor and inside buses. The findings show that after implementation of the BRT, physical activity has increased, air quality and exposure have improved and that traffic crashes have likely fallen, though more research is needed and additional attention is needed to certain user groups and their well-being. For example, with residents walking more, additional attention to the condition of sidewalks may be necessary, as well as looking further into the mobility needs between genders. Overall, the implementation of BRT, especially when a complete street can be viewed as an urban transport measure that may improve public health, though further attention drawn to the built environment around stations.

A survey of deployment of sidewalks in central urban areas of 12 cities, China

Objective: To explore the deployment of sidewalks and the possible relationship with local GDP, population density and prosperity of streets in 12 cities selected in China. Methods: For all the streets in 333 blocks of 12 cities surveyed (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Qingdao, Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Suzhou, Nantong, Zhenjiang, Chengdu, Xining and Harbin), the deployment and management of sidewalks were observed. And we collected the GDP data of the 12 cities, the population data of 333 blocks, and the numbers of stores and restaurants along the streets. Results: A total of 4 255 streets were included in the study. In the 12 cities, 71.1% of the streets had sidewalks. The deployment rates of sidewalks was high in Qingdao (91.9%) and Harbin (90.6%), and low in Suzhou (48.6%) and Shaoxing (52.6%), the differences were significant. The higher GDP of city was, the more sidewalks were deployed. But on the other hand there were more parking cars and obstacles on the sidewalks. The higher the population density was, the worse the condition of sidewalks was. Conclusions: The survey of sidewalks in the 12 cities indicated that efforts could be made to improve the condition of sidewalks. Attention should be paid not only to the deployment of sidewalks, but also the management of sidewalks. Reasonable deployment of sidewalks should be considered according to the local population density and traffic flow.

Urban physical environmental factors that influence mobility and well-being in senior adults (> 70 years), Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.

Introduction Falls are among the main external causes of death in adults over 70 years old. The physical environment influences the mobility of the elderly and affects mortality. We identified threats to the elderly within the urban physical environment, in addition to their exposure as a result of the activities undertaken outside the home and the means of transportation used by seniors, as well as the sociodemographic conditions of vulnerability affecting their mobility. Methods Qualitative research, through interviews conducted with people over 70 years old using non-probability sampling of residents in the municipality of Guadalajara. The method chosen was content analysis of narrative fragments. We analyzed frequency and percentage statistics for some elements of threats, exposure and vulnerability related to physical environmental factors. Results Fifty-six percent had suffered at least one fall (47% women and 9% men). Activities outside the home included seeking health care (94%), buying food supplies (69%), going for walks (69%), visiting relatives (63%), attending social gatherings (56%), going to work (41%). Means of trasnportation: walking (28%), bus (22%) and driving an automobile (16%). Threats and obstacles to mobility mentioned were: potholes/holes, uneveness or poor condition of sidewalks (69%), obstructed roads/walkways (50%) and weather conditions (cold, 44%). Vulnerability was associated with motor difficulties or chronic degenerative diseases (80%) and low schooling levels and illiteracy (50%). Conclusions Mobility affects the wellbeing of the elderly. In Guadalajara, physical threats are perceived to be related to the quality of the urban environment and infrastructure, which increase exposure to such threats and, in situations of heightened vulnerability, increase the risk of suffering accidents, loss of welfare and even death. Guadalajara was not planned to take into account the mobility of its senior population.

Pedestrians’ mental satisfaction's relationship with physical characteristics on sidewalks using analytical hierarchy process: case study of Tehran, Iran

The aim of the current study is an examination of the relationship between the existing physical characteristics of sidewalks in Tehran, Iran, and pedestrians’ mental satisfaction. In order to successfully achieve this, physical and mental sidewalk characteristics were determined via expert elicitation and pedestrian investigations. Subsequently, 40 photographs of sidewalks located in Tehran were selected from all taken images, based upon photographic techniques; these were used to elicit data from 514 respondents via formally developed questionnaires. An analytical hierarchy process (AHP) was employed to analyze collated data. Results indicate that mental satisfaction is directly correlated with observed physical condition of sidewalks. It is concluded that sensitivity analyses such as those used in this study may be suitable for future optimization of sidewalk construction and maintenance; the presented approach may represent an appropriate model for increasing pedestrians’ satisfaction and is thus potentially of use to urban and peri-urban planners.

Virtual and actual: Relative accuracy of on-site and web-based instruments in auditing the environment for physical activity

ObjectivesTo assess the relative accuracy and usefulness of web tools in evaluating and measuring street-scale built environment characteristics. MethodsA well-known audit tool was used to evaluate 84 street segments at the urban edge of metropolitan Boston, Massachusetts, using on-site visits and three web-based tools. The assessments were compared to evaluate their relative accuracy and usefulness. ResultsWeb-based audits, based-on Google Maps, Google Street View, and MS Visual Oblique, tend to strongly agree with on-site audits on land-use and transportation characteristics (e.g., types of buildings, commercial destinations, and streets). However, the two approaches to conducting audits (web versus on-site) tend to agree only weakly on fine-grain, temporal, and qualitative environmental elements. Among the web tools used, auditors rated MS Visual Oblique as the most valuable. Yet Street View tends to be rated as the most useful in measuring fine-grain features, such as levelness and condition of sidewalks. ConclusionWhile web-based tools do not offer a perfect substitute for on-site audits, they allow for preliminary audits to be performed accurately from remote locations, potentially saving time and cost and increasing the effectiveness of subsequent on-site visits.

Abstract PL01-04: Impact of the built environment on obesity.

Abstract The prevalence of overweight and obesity has reached epidemic levels in the United States. This poses a significant public health problem given that obesity is a risk factor for many chronic conditions and certain cancers. With these high levels of overweight/obesity in the United States, researchers have begun to search for neighborhood factors, including the social and built environment, which may influence overweight/obesity. The built environment comprises the physical attributes of a person's surroundings, including the existence and condition of sidewalks and trails for walking and other types of recreation, the spatial configuration of street networks, availability of health-promoting resources, and the number of walkable destinations. The social environment, which is often considered together with the built environment, includes the social and economic aspects of a neighborhood. The built and social environment could affect body size by shaping opportunities or barriers to physical activity or adherence to dietary recommendations. However, studies assessing the association between the built environment and obesity have produced mixed results among adult samples. Recent reviews have identified two measures of the built environment that have been consistently associated with overweight/obesity outcomes across studies. Obesity/overweight has been found to be more prevalent among residents of counties where increasing sprawl makes it more difficult to walk to destinations, while obesity/overweight has been found to be less prevalent in communities with more mixed land use. However, other measures, including population density, density of fast and other food stores, walkability indices, and the number of recreational facilities have not consistently shown associations with overweight/obesity outcomes. The heterogeneity of findings may be due to different measures and operationalizations of the built environment, the geographic buffers and scales used, or the cross-sectional, observational design of most studies. Focusing on publicly available databases (e.g., Census) obtained at minimal cost (with the exception of business listing data), we compiled the California Neighborhoods Data System (CNDS), an extensive set of geospatial data to characterize the social and built environment in California. We compiled data available at the census tract or finer level for estimating neighborhood effects. Analyses of the CNDS data have found that built environment characteristics of Census-defined neighborhoods vary by neighborhood socioeconomic status. Utilizing CNDS data linked to study data with individual-level sociodemographic and health-related information, we have not found any specific measures of the built environment to be associated with overweight/obesity after adjusting for a composite measure of neighborhood socioeconomic status, but found associations with this measure of neighborhood socioeconomic status. In our recursive partitioning analyses linking CNDS data with a large cohort study in California, we found that the relationship between neighborhood socioeconomic status and overweight/obesity was not uniform across racial/ethnic groups. Specifically, the probability of being overweight/obese was highest for African-American women, regardless of neighborhood socioeconomic status, while for women of other race/ethnicities, living in lower socioeconomic status neighborhoods was associated with a higher probability of being overweight/obese. Similarly, in women diagnosed with breast cancer in two population-based studies in the San Francisco Bay Area, we found the odds of being overweight/obese to be associated with both African American and Hispanic race/ethnicity and living in a lower socioeconomic status neighborhood. The relationship between neighborhood socioeconomic status and overweight/obesity highlights the importance of socioeconomic status and underscores the need for improving our understanding of the social and built environment factors associated with neighborhood socioeconomic status. Citation Format: Theresa H.M. Keegan, Salma Shariff-Marco, Juan Yang, Scarlett Lin Gomez. Impact of the built environment on obesity. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Fifth AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2012 Oct 27-30; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2012;21(10 Suppl):Abstract nr PL01-04.

Extremity fractures in children: a hospital based study in Tehran

Objective Although long bone fracture in children is not life-threatening, it may cause major disability, loss of working days and severe psychological distress. We conducted this study to determine the pattern of extremity fracture due to trauma in children. Methods During one year in six general hospitals in Tehran, trauma patients who were hospitalized for more than 24 hours and sustained injuries within seven days before admission were included in the study. The records of children (≤16 years old) hospitalized in six general hospitals in Tehran due to trauma were reviewed prospectively. Results During the study period, 1 274 children had sustained extremity fractures. Male to female ratio was 3.6/1, with the mean age of (10.3±4.2) years. Falls and traffic crashes were the main causes of injuries, with the percentages of 57.3% and 37.1%, respectively. Simple fall (falling on the ground) consisted 60% of patients that sustained fall-related injuries. Pedestrians and bicycle riders comprised most of the cases that were injured due to traffic crashes. Of our cases, 56.8% sustained fractures in the upper extremities and 43.2% in the lower extremities. Forearm was the most common fracture site (34.1%). Comparing our results in preschool and school-age children, falls were the main cause of injuries in both groups, but fractures of lower extremities were significantly more common in preschool children. Conclusions Improvement of physical condition of sidewalks and crossings in roads will be necessary for prevention of injuries. More attention to safety of home environment should be paid for control of preschools' injury at home. Education of children and adults is necessary to reduce injuries resulting from road traffic crashes.

Comparing objective measures of environmental supports for pedestrian travel in adults

BackgroundEvidence is growing that the built environment has the potential to influence walking--both positively and negatively. However, uncertainty remains on the best approaches to representing the pedestrian environment in order to discern associations between walking and the environment. Research into the relationship between environment and walking is complex; challenges include choice of measures (objective and subjective), quality and availability of data, and methods for managing quantitative data through aggregation and weighting. In particular, little research has examined how to aggregate built environment data to best represent the neighborhood environments expected to influence residents' behavior. This study examined associations between walking and local pedestrian supports (as measured with an environmental audit), comparing the results of models using three different methods to aggregate and weight pedestrian features.MethodsUsing data collected in 2005-2006 for a sample of 251 adult residents of Montgomery County, MD, we examined associations between pedestrian facilities and walking behaviors (pedestrian trips and average daily steps). Adjusted negative binomial and ordinary least-squares regression models were used to compare three different data aggregation techniques (raw averages, length weighting, distance weighting) for measures of pedestrian facilities that included presence, condition, width and connectivity of sidewalks, and presence of crossing aids and crosswalks.ResultsParticipants averaged 8.9 walk trips during the week; daily step counts averaged 7042. The three aggregation techniques revealed different associations between walk trips and the various pedestrian facilities. Crossing aids and good sidewalk conditions were associated with walk trips more than were other pedestrian facilities, while sidewalk facilities and features showed associations with steps not observed for crossing aids and crosswalks.ConclusionAmong three methods of aggregation examined, the method that accounted for distance from participant's home to the pedestrian facility (distance weighting) is promising; at the same time, it requires the most time and effort to calculate. This finding is consistent with the behavioral assumption that travelers may respond to environmental features closer to their residence more strongly than to more distant environmental qualities.