Attributes of Environments Supporting Walking

Abstract Purpose This study established a framework to audit environments supporting walking in neighborhoods. Design Cross-sectional analysis using a telephone survey and 200 objective environmental variables. Setting Urbanized King County, WA. Subjects 608 randomly sampled adults. Measures Walking measures constructed from survey questions; objective environmental measures taken from parcel-level databases in Geographic Information Systems. Analysis Multinomial models estimated the odds of people engaging in moderate walking (<149 min/wk) and in walking sufficiently to meet recommendations for health (150+ min/wk), relative to not walking; and in walking sufficiently, relative to walking moderately. A base model consisted of survey variables, and final models incorporated both survey and environmental variables. Results Survey variables strongly associated with walking sufficiently to enhance health included household income, not having difficulty walking, using transit, perceiving social support for wa...