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Designing healthy communities: creating evidence on metrics for built environment features associated with walkable neighbourhood activity centres

BACKGROUND: Evidence-based metrics are needed to inform urban policy to create healthy walkable communities. Most active living research has developed metrics of the environment around residential addresses, ignoring other important walking locations. Therefore, this study examined: metrics for buil...

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Autores principales: Gunn, Lucy Dubrelle, Mavoa, Suzanne, Boulangé, Claire, Hooper, Paula, Kavanagh, Anne, Giles-Corti, Billie
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5716232/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29202849
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12966-017-0621-9
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author Gunn, Lucy Dubrelle
Mavoa, Suzanne
Boulangé, Claire
Hooper, Paula
Kavanagh, Anne
Giles-Corti, Billie
author_facet Gunn, Lucy Dubrelle
Mavoa, Suzanne
Boulangé, Claire
Hooper, Paula
Kavanagh, Anne
Giles-Corti, Billie
author_sort Gunn, Lucy Dubrelle
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Evidence-based metrics are needed to inform urban policy to create healthy walkable communities. Most active living research has developed metrics of the environment around residential addresses, ignoring other important walking locations. Therefore, this study examined: metrics for built environment features surrounding local shopping centres, (known in Melbourne, Australia as neighbourhood activity centres (NACs) which are typically anchored by a supermarket); the association between NACs and transport walking; and, policy compliance for supermarket provision. METHODS: In this observational study, cluster analysis was used to categorize 534 NACs in Melbourne, Australia by their built environment features. The NACS were linked to eligible Victorian Integrated Survey of Travel Activity 2009-2010 (VISTA) survey participants (n=19,984). Adjusted multilevel logistic regressions estimated associations between each cluster typology and two outcomes of daily walking: any transport walking; and, any ‘neighbourhood’ transport walking. Distance between residential dwellings and closest NAC was assessed to evaluate compliance with local planning policy on supermarket locations. RESULTS: Metrics for 19 built environment features were estimated and three NAC clusters associated with walkability were identified. NACs with significantly higher street connectivity (mean:161, SD:20), destination diversity (mean:16, SD:0.4); and net residential density (mean:77, SD:65) were interpreted as being ‘highly walkable’ when compared with ‘low walkable’ NACs, which had lower street connectivity (mean:57, SD:15); destination diversity (mean:11, SD:3); and net residential density (mean:10, SD:3). The odds of any daily transport walking was 5.85 times higher (95% CI: 4.22, 8.11), and for any ‘neighborhood’ transport walking 8.66 (95% CI: 5.89, 12.72) times higher, for residents whose closest NAC was highly walkable compared with those living near low walkable NACs. Only highly walkable NACs met the policy requirement that residents live within 1km of a local supermarket. CONCLUSIONS: Built environment features surrounding NACs must reach certain levels to encourage walking and deliver walkable communities. Research and metrics about the type and quantity of built environment features around both walking trip origins and destinations is needed to inform urban planning policies and urban design guidelines. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12966-017-0621-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-57162322017-12-08 Designing healthy communities: creating evidence on metrics for built environment features associated with walkable neighbourhood activity centres Gunn, Lucy Dubrelle Mavoa, Suzanne Boulangé, Claire Hooper, Paula Kavanagh, Anne Giles-Corti, Billie Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act Research BACKGROUND: Evidence-based metrics are needed to inform urban policy to create healthy walkable communities. Most active living research has developed metrics of the environment around residential addresses, ignoring other important walking locations. Therefore, this study examined: metrics for built environment features surrounding local shopping centres, (known in Melbourne, Australia as neighbourhood activity centres (NACs) which are typically anchored by a supermarket); the association between NACs and transport walking; and, policy compliance for supermarket provision. METHODS: In this observational study, cluster analysis was used to categorize 534 NACs in Melbourne, Australia by their built environment features. The NACS were linked to eligible Victorian Integrated Survey of Travel Activity 2009-2010 (VISTA) survey participants (n=19,984). Adjusted multilevel logistic regressions estimated associations between each cluster typology and two outcomes of daily walking: any transport walking; and, any ‘neighbourhood’ transport walking. Distance between residential dwellings and closest NAC was assessed to evaluate compliance with local planning policy on supermarket locations. RESULTS: Metrics for 19 built environment features were estimated and three NAC clusters associated with walkability were identified. NACs with significantly higher street connectivity (mean:161, SD:20), destination diversity (mean:16, SD:0.4); and net residential density (mean:77, SD:65) were interpreted as being ‘highly walkable’ when compared with ‘low walkable’ NACs, which had lower street connectivity (mean:57, SD:15); destination diversity (mean:11, SD:3); and net residential density (mean:10, SD:3). The odds of any daily transport walking was 5.85 times higher (95% CI: 4.22, 8.11), and for any ‘neighborhood’ transport walking 8.66 (95% CI: 5.89, 12.72) times higher, for residents whose closest NAC was highly walkable compared with those living near low walkable NACs. Only highly walkable NACs met the policy requirement that residents live within 1km of a local supermarket. CONCLUSIONS: Built environment features surrounding NACs must reach certain levels to encourage walking and deliver walkable communities. Research and metrics about the type and quantity of built environment features around both walking trip origins and destinations is needed to inform urban planning policies and urban design guidelines. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12966-017-0621-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2017-12-04 /pmc/articles/PMC5716232/ /pubmed/29202849 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12966-017-0621-9 Text en © The Author(s). 2017 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Gunn, Lucy Dubrelle
Mavoa, Suzanne
Boulangé, Claire
Hooper, Paula
Kavanagh, Anne
Giles-Corti, Billie
Designing healthy communities: creating evidence on metrics for built environment features associated with walkable neighbourhood activity centres
title Designing healthy communities: creating evidence on metrics for built environment features associated with walkable neighbourhood activity centres
title_full Designing healthy communities: creating evidence on metrics for built environment features associated with walkable neighbourhood activity centres
title_fullStr Designing healthy communities: creating evidence on metrics for built environment features associated with walkable neighbourhood activity centres
title_full_unstemmed Designing healthy communities: creating evidence on metrics for built environment features associated with walkable neighbourhood activity centres
title_short Designing healthy communities: creating evidence on metrics for built environment features associated with walkable neighbourhood activity centres
title_sort designing healthy communities: creating evidence on metrics for built environment features associated with walkable neighbourhood activity centres
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5716232/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29202849
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12966-017-0621-9
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