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In search of causality: a systematic review of the relationship between the built environment and physical activity among adults

BACKGROUND: Empirical evidence suggests that an association between the built environment and physical activity exists. This evidence is mostly derived from cross-sectional studies that do not account for other causal explanations such as neighborhood self-selection. Experimental and quasi-experimen...

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Autores principales: McCormack, Gavin R, Shiell, Alan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3306205/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22077952
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-8-125
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author McCormack, Gavin R
Shiell, Alan
author_facet McCormack, Gavin R
Shiell, Alan
author_sort McCormack, Gavin R
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Empirical evidence suggests that an association between the built environment and physical activity exists. This evidence is mostly derived from cross-sectional studies that do not account for other causal explanations such as neighborhood self-selection. Experimental and quasi-experimental designs can be used to isolate the effect of the built environment on physical activity, but in their absence, statistical techniques that adjust for neighborhood self-selection can be used with cross-sectional data. Previous reviews examining the built environment-physical activity relationship have not differentiated among findings based on study design. To deal with self-selection, we synthesized evidence regarding the relationship between objective measures of the built environment and physical activity by including in our review: 1) cross-sectional studies that adjust for neighborhood self-selection and 2) quasi-experiments. METHOD: In September 2010, we searched for English-language studies on built environments and physical activity from all available years in health, leisure, transportation, social sciences, and geographical databases. Twenty cross-sectional and 13 quasi-experimental studies published between 1996 and 2010 were included in the review. RESULTS: Most associations between the built environment and physical activity were in the expected direction or null. Land use mix, connectivity and population density and overall neighborhood design were however, important determinants of physical activity. The built environment was more likely to be associated with transportation walking compared with other types of physical activity including recreational walking. Three studies found an attenuation in associations between built environment characteristics and physical activity after accounting for neighborhood self-selection. CONCLUSION: More quasi-experiments that examine a broader range of environmental attributes in relation to context-specific physical activity and that measure changes in the built environment, neighborhood preferences and their effect on physical activity are needed.
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spelling pubmed-33062052012-03-17 In search of causality: a systematic review of the relationship between the built environment and physical activity among adults McCormack, Gavin R Shiell, Alan Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act Review BACKGROUND: Empirical evidence suggests that an association between the built environment and physical activity exists. This evidence is mostly derived from cross-sectional studies that do not account for other causal explanations such as neighborhood self-selection. Experimental and quasi-experimental designs can be used to isolate the effect of the built environment on physical activity, but in their absence, statistical techniques that adjust for neighborhood self-selection can be used with cross-sectional data. Previous reviews examining the built environment-physical activity relationship have not differentiated among findings based on study design. To deal with self-selection, we synthesized evidence regarding the relationship between objective measures of the built environment and physical activity by including in our review: 1) cross-sectional studies that adjust for neighborhood self-selection and 2) quasi-experiments. METHOD: In September 2010, we searched for English-language studies on built environments and physical activity from all available years in health, leisure, transportation, social sciences, and geographical databases. Twenty cross-sectional and 13 quasi-experimental studies published between 1996 and 2010 were included in the review. RESULTS: Most associations between the built environment and physical activity were in the expected direction or null. Land use mix, connectivity and population density and overall neighborhood design were however, important determinants of physical activity. The built environment was more likely to be associated with transportation walking compared with other types of physical activity including recreational walking. Three studies found an attenuation in associations between built environment characteristics and physical activity after accounting for neighborhood self-selection. CONCLUSION: More quasi-experiments that examine a broader range of environmental attributes in relation to context-specific physical activity and that measure changes in the built environment, neighborhood preferences and their effect on physical activity are needed. BioMed Central 2011-11-13 /pmc/articles/PMC3306205/ /pubmed/22077952 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-8-125 Text en Copyright ©2011 McCormack and Shiell; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Review
McCormack, Gavin R
Shiell, Alan
In search of causality: a systematic review of the relationship between the built environment and physical activity among adults
title In search of causality: a systematic review of the relationship between the built environment and physical activity among adults
title_full In search of causality: a systematic review of the relationship between the built environment and physical activity among adults
title_fullStr In search of causality: a systematic review of the relationship between the built environment and physical activity among adults
title_full_unstemmed In search of causality: a systematic review of the relationship between the built environment and physical activity among adults
title_short In search of causality: a systematic review of the relationship between the built environment and physical activity among adults
title_sort in search of causality: a systematic review of the relationship between the built environment and physical activity among adults
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3306205/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22077952
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-8-125
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