The Influence of the Local Neighbourhood Environment on Walking Levels During the Www Pedometer-Based Community Intervention

This paper reports on the findings of a study which investigated the influence of the local neighbourhood physical environment on participant’s walking levels during the Walking for Wellbeing in the West (WWW) pedometer-based community intervention, carried out in Glasgow, 2006-2009. As far as we are aware this is the first study to examine the influence of the environment on walking levels in the context of a walking intervention, and one of only a few studies to provide information on walking-physical environment relationships for a European city.Walking activity was recorded at four stages of the intervention: baseline (n=76), and at 3 months (n=57), 6 months (n=54) and 12 months (n=45) post-intervention. Step counts were monitored using sealed Omron pedometers, and objective physical environmental data were obtained from (i) GIS datasets and (ii) street surveys carried out prior to the intervention using the Scottish Walkability Audit Tool (SWAT). Data were summarised for 400 m radius zones around each participant’s home. A total of 69 environment variables were used, reduced to 8 environment factors using Principal Axis Factoring, prior to regression analyses. Hierarchical multiple linear regression was used to examine the relationship between the environment factors and (i) step counts, and (ii) the change in step counts relative to baseline. Demographic variables included in the analysis were age and gender.Five of the environment factors were found to be significant predictors of step counts over and above age and gender, but none were significant predictors of the change in step counts relative to baseline. Environment factors that were significantly associated with step counts were: (i) Green space and recreation facilities (-ve association, p<0.05); (ii) Commercial and residential land use mix (+ve association, p<0.05); (iii) Dangerous and busy roads (-ve association, p<0.05); (iv) Indoor fitness facilities and traffic calming features (+ve assoc