The Built Environment and Physical Activity: Empirical Methods and Data Resource

Does a person’s environment influence their physical activity? Intuition, theory, and preliminary evidence all suggest that there is an association between environment and physical activity, but questions of causality and magnitude remain poorly answered, in large part due to data challenges. If public health policy is to make meaningful links to the built environment, the literature will require careful tests of causal links and an understanding of the magnitude of those links. This paper reviews the data that are available for testing hypotheses about the built environment, physical activity, and health outcomes, both to educate the research community about existing data and current challenges and to illuminate data gaps that should be addressed as this research agenda moves forward.

[1]  A. King,et al.  Theoretical approaches to the promotion of physical activity: forging a transdisciplinary paradigm. , 2002, American journal of preventive medicine.

[2]  Michael J. Greenwald.  The Road Less Traveled , 2003 .

[3]  Susan L Handy,et al.  Regional Versus Local Accessibility: Implications for Nonwork Travel , 1993 .

[4]  A. Kulkarni,et al.  Assessment of Influence of Land Use–Transportation System on Travel Behavior , 1997 .

[5]  Reid Ewing,et al.  Travel and the Built Environment: A Synthesis , 2001 .

[6]  A S Leon,et al.  Leisure-time physical activity levels and risk of coronary heart disease and death. The Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial. , 1987, JAMA.

[7]  Marlon G. Boarnet,et al.  Land Use, Urban Design, and Non-Work Travel: Reproducing for Portland, Oregon, Empirical Tests from other Urban Areas , 1999 .

[8]  R. Crane,et al.  DOES NEIGHBORHOOD DESIGN INFLUENCE TRAVEL?: A BEHAVIORAL ANALYSIS OF TRAVEL DIARY AND GIS DATA , 1998 .

[9]  C. Caspersen,et al.  Introduction to a Collection of Physical Activity Questionnaires , 1997 .

[10]  R. Cervero,et al.  TRAVEL DEMAND AND THE 3DS: DENSITY, DIVERSITY, AND DESIGN , 1997 .

[11]  K Rodahl,et al.  Physical fitness as a predictor of mortality among healthy, middle-aged Norwegian men. , 1993, The New England journal of medicine.

[12]  R. Paffenbarger,et al.  Physical activity, all-cause mortality, and longevity of college alumni. , 1986, The New England journal of medicine.

[13]  Mingche M. Li,et al.  Micro-Neighborhood Externalities and Hedonic Housing Prices , 1980 .

[14]  J. Morris,et al.  Exercise in leisure time: coronary attack and death rates. , 1990, British heart journal.

[15]  R S Paffenbarger,et al.  Physical fitness and all-cause mortality. A prospective study of healthy men and women. , 1989, JAMA.

[16]  W L Haskell,et al.  Physical fitness as a predictor of cardiovascular mortality in asymptomatic North American men. The Lipid Research Clinics Mortality Follow-up Study. , 1988, The New England journal of medicine.

[17]  Billie Giles-Corti,et al.  Developing a reliable audit instrument to measure the physical environment for physical activity. , 2002, American journal of preventive medicine.

[18]  Andrew M. Isserman,et al.  NEW HIGHWAYS AS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT TOOLS: AN EVALUATION USING QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL MATCHING METHODS , 1994 .

[19]  T. Cook,et al.  Quasi-experimentation: Design & analysis issues for field settings , 1979 .

[20]  Donald R. Haurin,et al.  School Quality and Real House Prices: Inter- and Intrametropolitan Effects , 1996 .

[21]  A. Manley.  Physical Activity And Health: A Report Of The Surgeon General , 2004 .

[22]  D Pickrell,et al.  Transportation and Land Use , 2020, International Encyclopedia of Human Geography.

[23]  R. Untermann.  ACCOMMODATING THE PEDESTRIAN: ADAPTING TOWNS AND NEIGHBOURHOODS FOR WALKING AND BICYCLING , 1984 .

[24]  Marlon G. Boarnet,et al.  Built Environment as Determinant of Walking Behavior: Analyzing Nonwork Pedestrian Travel in Portland, Oregon , 2001 .

[25]  Ilan Salomon,et al.  How Derived is the Demand for Travel? Some Conceptual and Measurement Considerations , 2001 .

[26]  Gregory J. Welk,et al.  Physical Activity Assessments for Health-Related Research , 2002 .

[27]  S. Raudenbush,et al.  Relationship between Urban Sprawl and Physical Activity, Obesity, and Morbidity , 2003, American journal of health promotion : AJHP.

[28]  M. Boarnet,et al.  New highways, house prices, and Urban development: A case study of toll roads in orange county, Ca , 2001 .

[29]  Marlon G. Boarnet,et al.  Comparing the Influence of Land Use on Nonwork Trip Generation and Vehicle Distance Traveled: An Analysis using Travel Diary Data. , 2003 .

[30]  Marlon G. Boarnet,et al.  The influence of land use on travel behavior: specification and estimation strategies , 2001 .

[31]  M. Boarnet,et al.  Can Land Use Policy Really Affect Travel Behavior? A Study of the Link between Non-Work Travel and Land Use Characteristics , 1996 .

[32]  R. Brownson,et al.  Environmental and policy determinants of physical activity in the United States. , 2001, American journal of public health.

[33]  Michael N. Bagley,et al.  The impact of residential neighborhood type on travel behavior: A structural equations modeling approach , 2001 .

[34]  Kelly J. Clifton,et al.  Local shopping as a strategy for reducing automobile travel , 2001 .

[35]  K. Patrick,et al.  Physical Activity and Public Health: A Recommendation From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American College of Sports Medicine , 1995 .

[36]  Marlon G. Boarnet,et al.  Travel by design : the influence of urban form on travel , 2001 .

[37]  Peter Linneman,et al.  Migration and Job Change: A Multinomial Logit Approach , 1983, Journal of urban economics.