Built environment

Background: Many cities exhibit urban sprawl and car dominance leading to poor air quality, increased sedentary behaviour, road network congestion and poor population health. To alleviate this, city planners are turning attention to the promotion of active transport and walking through urban design.
Purpose: To examine correlates of walking, prior research has used walk trips to places of work or education. This approach can confound analyses and give misleading results. This research focusses on walk trips initiated from home to work, education, and shops separately, as a means of examining built environment correlates associated with walking to these destinations.
Methods: This research used 2016-2020 the Victorian Integrated Survey of Travel and Activity (VISTA) data from Melbourne, Australia. Descriptive and GIS analysis of walking trip data and multilevel regression models were used to examine associations between population density, street connectivity, destination and public transport access and walking trips from home to work, education, and shops.
Results: Results indicate 40% of walking trips were from home, with 13% going directly to work, 12% to education and 11% to shops. Education and shopping locations were dispersed across the city, whilst work locations were centrally located. We found significant associations with population density, street connectivity, destination and public transport access and walking trips from home by destination.
Conclusions: Home and destination environments are important determinants of walking trips from home and should be considered in urban planning policies and city planning.
Practical implications: Improving built environments at key destinations has the potential to support walking trips from home and increase active transport uptake through planning policies such as the 15-20 minute city.
Funding: Research funded by UKRI-NHMRC grant (jes2250186-APP1192788), and RMIT University.

Background: Previous research indicates the start of primary school (4-5-year-old) as an essential period for the development of children’s PA patterns, as from this point, the age-related decline of PA is most often observed. During this period, young children are exposed to a wider variety of environmental- and social contexts and therefore their PA is influenced by more diverse factors. However, in order to understand children’s daily PA patterns and identify relevant opportunities for PA promotion, it is important to further unravel in which (social) environments throughout the day, PA of young children takes place.
Methods: In total, 248 children provided valid accelerometer and global positioning (GPS) data. Geospatial analyses were conducted to quantify PA in (social) environments based on their school and home. Transport-related PA was evaluated using GPS speed-algorithms. PA was analysed at different time-periods and for week- and weekend days.
Results and conclusions: Children accumulated 60 minutes of PA during week- and weekend days. Schools contributed to approximately half of daily PA during weekdays. During weekends, environments within 100 meters from home were important, as well as locations outside the home-school neighbourhood. Pedestrian trips contributed to almost half of the daily PA.
Funding: The Start Vaardig study was funded by the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) (RAAKPRO03.123).

Background: In the UK, there are disparities in the access and engagement of urban greenspaces, particularly among low-income, ethnically diverse communities. Determining how these communities interact with greenspaces and what factors influence their use will provide useful information for planners and local and national policy-makers to meet the needs of those in their local communities. Purpose: This study aimed to examine how people who reside in an ethnically diverse community use and engage with urban greenspaces and aimed to assess the potential barriers and facilitators that influence use. Methods: A cross-sectional survey conducted in an urban, deprived, ethnically diverse town in southeast England investigated greenspace usage, including frequency and types of activities, alongside the psycho-socio-ecological factors influencing use. The survey was shared online via Qualtrics and widely disseminated in the local community via bilingual fieldworkers and community networks. The sample comprised 906 participants (60.7% female; mean age 38 ±16.37 years). Results: The findings revealed that older people, those with higher levels of deprivation and/or those from a minority ethnic background were all shown to be the lowest users of greenspaces. The types of activities and reasons for visiting greenspaces vary by socio-demographic characteristics, with physical capability, awareness, motivation, and perceived importance identified as the most significant predictors of greenspace use. Conclusions: This study has, through this increased understanding, provided timely information to local and national governments across the UK on how the engagement of greenspaces may vary across ethnically diverse and socially deprived communities, which can be used to generate policy recommendations and tailor interventions to improve access. Practical conclusions: This study has identified the most important predictors of greenspace use and potential targets for future intervention design. This will ensure that interventions are evidence-based and community-driven to ensure increased relevance and impact. Funding: Chilterns Conservation Board (CCB)

Background: Physical fitness is a vital indicator of overall health and wellbeing. Fitness impacts body mass regulation, obesity, and chronic disease risk. Children and adolescents worldwide are experiencing a decline in fitness levels. Recent evidence shows the role of the neighbourhood environment in supporting physical activity; however, there are few studies investigating the potential contribution of neighbourhoods to fitness. Purpose: To examine the role of the built environment as potential predictive features of youth fitness. Methods: Data were from the baseline visit of the Quebec Adipose and Lifestyle Investigation in Youth Cohort (n=630 families), an ongoing study of natural history of obesity in youth and young adults. Participants (aged 8-10 years at recruitment) with at least one biological parent living with obesity were recruited through schools in 3 large Quebec cities. To assess fitness, peak oxygen consumption was measured using a cycling test on an electromagnetic bike. Salient features of residential built environments, including walkability, traffic safety, and air quality, were assessed using on-site audits and a Geographic Information System. Supervised machine learning methods were applied to the case-complete sample (n=342), after imputing data for physical activity using predictive mean matching (mice package in R). A random forest algorithm identified key variables predictive of fitness, and decision trees to clarify inherent variable interactions, yielding an interpretable hierarchy of variable importance. Results: The random forest model for peak oxygen consumption (VO2peak/ml/kg) identified the following neighbourhood factors among the top ten predictors: number of neighbourhood intersections, building density, vegetation index, and rush hour traffic. Other predictors included BMIz, Tanner stage, physical activity, and parental education. Additionally, the decision tree model highlighted sex, neighbourhood intersections, and land use mix as significant factors in data partitioning. Conclusions: Results may inform interventions seeking to modify built environments to improve fitness in youth. Funding: CIHR, HSFC

Background: Studies have reported associations between neighborhood aesthetics (well-kept buildings, attractive sights, etc.) and physical activity in neighborhoods. In addition to aesthetics, the presence of vacant and demolished homes in neighborhoods is associated with declines in safety and social cohesion – which can also adversely impact physical activity and associated noncommunicable disease (NCD) risk factors and outcomes. Purpose: To examine the association between housing demolition and vacancies with physical inactivity in neighborhoods in Austin, Texas, USA. Methods: The primary outcome of interest of this GIS analysis was the neighborhood-level prevalence of physical inactivity, assessed via the single-item question of the CDC-PLACES dataset (“in the past 30 days did you participate in any leisure-time physical activity?”). Secondary outcomes included prevalence rates for obesity, hypertension, diabetes, heart disease (CHD), and cancer. Counts of demolished housing and vacancies per neighborhood were calculated. Population-density and income-adjusted linear regressions tested associations between vacant and demolished housing with physical inactivity and NCD-related outcomes. Results: In 2022-2023, Austin neighborhoods had an average of 119.41±103.02 vacant or demolished homes; and a mean prevalence (%) of physical inactivity of 13.59±10.11. The presence of vacancies was not significantly associated with physical inactivity prevalence in neighborhoods (-0.004±0.005, p=0.42). Demolished housing was not associated with physical inactivity prevalence in neighborhoods (0.03±0.05, p=0.56) but was directly associated with hypertension (0.18±0.07, p=0.01), cancer (0.05±0.01, p<0.001), and CHD (0.03±0.01, p=0.01) prevalence. Conclusions: Findings suggest that the mechanisms via which demolished housing relates to NCD risk factors and outcomes may not involve physical inactivity as a mediator. However, more research is needed including comprehensive neighborhood-condition and safety assessments, a less coarse measure to estimate physical inactivity prevalence, and longitudinal study designs. Practical implications: Neighborhood upkeep can be a public health issue with relevance to physical activity promotion and NCD prevention and requires more attention. Funding: N/A.

Background: Rapid urbanization, mechanization, and motorization has brought demographic, epidemiological changes and lifestyle changes including a high prevalence of dietary risks and physical inactivity in Oman. Urban design and transport are not adequately addressed in the national physical activity plan. Purpose: To evaluate the extent to which policies support the design and development of healthy and sustainable cities in Oman. Methods: Using the 1000 Cities Challenge urban policy checklist, the research team coordinated with local experts at the national and city level (Barka, Nizwa and Muscat) to obtain relevant policy and regulatory documents for 13 domains: integrated transport and urban planning, air pollution, transport infrastructure investment by mode, disaster mitigation, density, diversity, demand management, destination proximity, desirability, design, destination accessibility, distribution of employment, and distance to public transport. Available policies were assessed to see if they aligned with principles of healthy and sustainable cities, include a measurable target and if available, if the measurable target is an evidence-informed threshold as described by the Global Observatory of Healthy and Sustainable Cities. Results/conclusion: The Oman National Spatial Strategy 2024 and the National Spatial Standards published in late 2023 describe a clear vision for 5 – minute neighborhoods; additional national standards are under discussion. These two covering a good portion of the domains are complemented by older sectoral regulations covering specific domains. Preliminary results show that despite the clear policy vision for healthy sustainable cities some policies do not align with public health recommendations and few include evidence-informed measurable policy targets. Practical implications: The results of this study will provide important insights that could help guide key stakeholders engaged in expanding available urban and transport policies and standards. Funding: This study was funded by The Research Council, Oman.