Effects of the Residential Environment on Health in Japan Linked with Travel Behavior

This paper aims to clarify how the residential environment is associated with overall health-related quality of life (QOL) via active travel (walking and cycling), by reflecting the influence of different trip purposes in Japan. The health-related QOL includes physical, mental, and social dimensions. For this study we implemented a questionnaire survey in 20 cities in Japan in 2010 and obtained valid answers from 1202 respondents. The residential environment is defined in terms of distances to and densities of different daily facilities extracted from both the survey and external GIS data. We found that the effects of residential environment on active travel behavior are mixed and limited, depending on types of trip makers. Unexpectedly, travel behavior has no direct effects on the health-related QOL. The residential environment, which is only observed indirectly via lifestyle habits for commuters, has limited effects on health. As for noncommuters, neither their travel behavior nor the residential environment influences their health-related QOL.