Does the Environment Moderate the Impact of a Mass Media Campaign to Promote Walking

Abstract Purpose. To examine if a mass media campaign influenced walking differently in people in different physical environments. Design. Quasi-experimental study. Setting. Wheeling, West Virginia. Participants. Random sample of adults age 50 to 65 years, response rate: 72.1% (n  =  719 in intervention community, n  =  753 in comparison community). Intervention. Mass media campaign. Measures. Self-reported measures were used in before and after telephone surveys for walking and the physical environment. Measures included 11 environmental walkability items, from which two subscales (i.e., usable sidewalks/aesthetics and facilities) were extracted. Analysis. Multiple linear regression. Results. Overall, walking increased by 2.7 minutes per week (standard deviation [SD]  =  231.1, not significant [NS]). When confined to those insufficiently active at baseline (i.e., <30 minutes per day) the minutes walked increased by 92.1 minutes (SD  =  152.9, p < .001). For the insufficiently active at baseline in the to...