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Walking for transportation in Hong Kong Chinese urban elders: a cross-sectional study on what destinations matter and when

BACKGROUND: Walking for transport can contribute to the accrual of health-enhancing levels of physical activity in elders. Identifying destinations and environmental conditions that facilitate this type of walking has public health significance. However, most findings are limited to Western, low-den...

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Autores principales: Cerin, Ester, Lee, Ka-yiu, Barnett, Anthony, Sit, Cindy HP, Cheung, Man-chin, Chan, Wai-man, Johnston, Janice M
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3689599/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23782627
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-10-78
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author Cerin, Ester
Lee, Ka-yiu
Barnett, Anthony
Sit, Cindy HP
Cheung, Man-chin
Chan, Wai-man
Johnston, Janice M
author_facet Cerin, Ester
Lee, Ka-yiu
Barnett, Anthony
Sit, Cindy HP
Cheung, Man-chin
Chan, Wai-man
Johnston, Janice M
author_sort Cerin, Ester
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Walking for transport can contribute to the accrual of health-enhancing levels of physical activity in elders. Identifying destinations and environmental conditions that facilitate this type of walking has public health significance. However, most findings are limited to Western, low-density locations, while a larger proportion of the global population resides in ultra-dense Asian metropolises. We investigated relationships of within-neighborhood objectively-measured destination categories and environmental attributes with walking for transport in 484 elders from an ultra-dense metropolis (Hong Kong). METHODS: We estimated relationships of diversity (number of different types) and prevalence of within-neighborhood destination categories (environmental audits of 400 m buffers surrounding residential addresses) with transport-related walking (interviewer–administered questionnaire) in 484 Chinese-speaking elders able to walk unassisted and living in 32 neighborhoods stratified by socio-economic status and transport-related walkability. We examined the moderating effects of safety and pedestrian infrastructure-related neighborhood attributes on destination-walking associations. RESULTS: Participants reported on average 569 and 254 min/week of overall and within-neighborhood walking for transport, respectively. The prevalence of public transit points and diversity of recreational destinations were positively related to overall walking for transport. The presence of a health clinic/service and place of worship, higher diversity in recreational destinations, and greater prevalence of non-food retails and services, food/grocery stores, and restaurants in the neighborhood were predictive of more within-neighborhood walking for transport. Neighborhood safety-related aspects moderated the relationship of overall walking for transport with the prevalence of public transit points, this being positive only in safe locations. Similar moderating effects of safety-related attributes were observed for the relationships of within-neighborhood walking for transport with diversity of recreational and entertainment destinations. Pedestrian-infrastructure attributes acted as moderators of associations of within-neighborhood walking for transport with prevalence of commercial destination categories. Composite destinations indices consisting of destination categories related to the specific measures of walking were positively associated with walking for transport. CONCLUSIONS: The availability of both non-commercial and commercial destinations may promote within-neighborhood walking for transport, while recreational facilities and public transit points may facilitate overall walking for transport. However, destination-rich areas need to also provide adequate levels of personal safety and a physically-unchallenging pedestrian network.
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spelling pubmed-36895992013-06-22 Walking for transportation in Hong Kong Chinese urban elders: a cross-sectional study on what destinations matter and when Cerin, Ester Lee, Ka-yiu Barnett, Anthony Sit, Cindy HP Cheung, Man-chin Chan, Wai-man Johnston, Janice M Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act Research BACKGROUND: Walking for transport can contribute to the accrual of health-enhancing levels of physical activity in elders. Identifying destinations and environmental conditions that facilitate this type of walking has public health significance. However, most findings are limited to Western, low-density locations, while a larger proportion of the global population resides in ultra-dense Asian metropolises. We investigated relationships of within-neighborhood objectively-measured destination categories and environmental attributes with walking for transport in 484 elders from an ultra-dense metropolis (Hong Kong). METHODS: We estimated relationships of diversity (number of different types) and prevalence of within-neighborhood destination categories (environmental audits of 400 m buffers surrounding residential addresses) with transport-related walking (interviewer–administered questionnaire) in 484 Chinese-speaking elders able to walk unassisted and living in 32 neighborhoods stratified by socio-economic status and transport-related walkability. We examined the moderating effects of safety and pedestrian infrastructure-related neighborhood attributes on destination-walking associations. RESULTS: Participants reported on average 569 and 254 min/week of overall and within-neighborhood walking for transport, respectively. The prevalence of public transit points and diversity of recreational destinations were positively related to overall walking for transport. The presence of a health clinic/service and place of worship, higher diversity in recreational destinations, and greater prevalence of non-food retails and services, food/grocery stores, and restaurants in the neighborhood were predictive of more within-neighborhood walking for transport. Neighborhood safety-related aspects moderated the relationship of overall walking for transport with the prevalence of public transit points, this being positive only in safe locations. Similar moderating effects of safety-related attributes were observed for the relationships of within-neighborhood walking for transport with diversity of recreational and entertainment destinations. Pedestrian-infrastructure attributes acted as moderators of associations of within-neighborhood walking for transport with prevalence of commercial destination categories. Composite destinations indices consisting of destination categories related to the specific measures of walking were positively associated with walking for transport. CONCLUSIONS: The availability of both non-commercial and commercial destinations may promote within-neighborhood walking for transport, while recreational facilities and public transit points may facilitate overall walking for transport. However, destination-rich areas need to also provide adequate levels of personal safety and a physically-unchallenging pedestrian network. BioMed Central 2013-06-20 /pmc/articles/PMC3689599/ /pubmed/23782627 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-10-78 Text en Copyright © 2013 Cerin et al.; 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 Research
Cerin, Ester
Lee, Ka-yiu
Barnett, Anthony
Sit, Cindy HP
Cheung, Man-chin
Chan, Wai-man
Johnston, Janice M
Walking for transportation in Hong Kong Chinese urban elders: a cross-sectional study on what destinations matter and when
title Walking for transportation in Hong Kong Chinese urban elders: a cross-sectional study on what destinations matter and when
title_full Walking for transportation in Hong Kong Chinese urban elders: a cross-sectional study on what destinations matter and when
title_fullStr Walking for transportation in Hong Kong Chinese urban elders: a cross-sectional study on what destinations matter and when
title_full_unstemmed Walking for transportation in Hong Kong Chinese urban elders: a cross-sectional study on what destinations matter and when
title_short Walking for transportation in Hong Kong Chinese urban elders: a cross-sectional study on what destinations matter and when
title_sort walking for transportation in hong kong chinese urban elders: a cross-sectional study on what destinations matter and when
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3689599/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23782627
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-10-78
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