Walking outdoors is often difficult or impossible for many seniors and people with disabilities during winter. We present a novel approach for conducting winter accessibility evaluations of commonly used pedestrian facilities, including sidewalks, street crossings, curb ramps (curb cuts and dropped curbs), outdoor stairs and ramps, building and transit entrances, bus stops, and driveways. A total of 183 individuals, aged 18-85 completed our survey. The results show that cold weather itself had little impact on the frequency of outdoor excursions among middle-aged and older adults while the presence of snow and/or ice on the ground noticeably kept people, especially older adults at home. The survey found that the key elements decreasing winter accessibility were icy sidewalks and puddles at street crossings and curb ramps. While communities have recognized the need to improve snow and ice removal, little attention has been paid to curb ramp design which is especially ineffective in winter when the bottom of the ramps pool with rain, snow, and ice, making it hazardous and inaccessible to nearly all users. We conclude that investigations of alternative designs of curb ramp are needed.

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The effect of outdoor clothing and repeated cold exposure on blood pressure, heart rate, skin temperature, and thermal sensation was studied in 16 young (18-34 years) and 8 middle-aged (35-51 years) normotensive participants. Four winter clothing ensembles were used: regular winter clothing without a hat, with a hat, with an extra pair of pants, and with a hat and an extra pair of pants. The participants were exposed four times to -5 degrees C for 15 min wearing different clothing ensembles in counterbalanced order and each cold exposure was followed by 25 min of rewarming at 25 degrees C. The results showed that systolic and diastolic blood pressure increased in cold and increased more when a hat was not used. Wearing hats not only reduced the blood pressure response during cold exposure, but also promoted faster recovery of forehead skin temperature and blood pressure. These findings are encouraging and warrant further investigations to better understand the benefits of wearing appropriate clothing in the winter, especially among older people and patients with cardiovascular diseases.

Assessing footwear slip-resistance is critical to preventing slip and fall accidents. The STM603 (SATRA Technology) is commonly used to assess footwear friction but its ability to predict human slips while walking is unclear. This study assessed this apparatus' ability to predict slips across footwear designs and to determine if modifying the test parameters alters predictions. The available coefficient of friction (ACOF) was measured with the device for nine different footwear designs using twelve testing conditions with varying vertical force, speed and shoe angle. The occurrence of slipping and required coefficient of friction was quantified from human gait data including 124 exposures to liquid contaminants. ACOF values varied across the test conditions leading to different slip prediction models. Generally, a larger shoe angle (13°) and higher vertical forces (400 or 500 N) modestly improved predictions of slipping. This study can potentially guide improvements in predictive test conditions for this device.