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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...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Perez Barbosa, David, Zhang, Junyi, Seya, Hajime
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4772210/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26848676
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13020190
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author Perez Barbosa, David
Zhang, Junyi
Seya, Hajime
author_facet Perez Barbosa, David
Zhang, Junyi
Seya, Hajime
author_sort Perez Barbosa, David
collection PubMed
description 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.
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spelling pubmed-47722102016-03-08 Effects of the Residential Environment on Health in Japan Linked with Travel Behavior Perez Barbosa, David Zhang, Junyi Seya, Hajime Int J Environ Res Public Health Article 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. MDPI 2016-02-03 2016-02 /pmc/articles/PMC4772210/ /pubmed/26848676 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13020190 Text en © 2016 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons by Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Perez Barbosa, David
Zhang, Junyi
Seya, Hajime
Effects of the Residential Environment on Health in Japan Linked with Travel Behavior
title Effects of the Residential Environment on Health in Japan Linked with Travel Behavior
title_full Effects of the Residential Environment on Health in Japan Linked with Travel Behavior
title_fullStr Effects of the Residential Environment on Health in Japan Linked with Travel Behavior
title_full_unstemmed Effects of the Residential Environment on Health in Japan Linked with Travel Behavior
title_short Effects of the Residential Environment on Health in Japan Linked with Travel Behavior
title_sort effects of the residential environment on health in japan linked with travel behavior
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4772210/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26848676
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13020190
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