Delineating the geographic context of physical activities: A systematic search and scoping review of the methodological approaches used in social ecological research over two decades

Linking Urban Planning, Community Environment, and Physical Activity: A Socio-Ecological Approach

“…The socio-ecological model integrates behavior theories and social ecology to explain determinants of physical activity at the individual, social, environmental and policy levels [7,12]. The socio-ecological model emphasizes the importance of community environment and policy in health behaviors, rather than solely focusing on individual characteristics [12,13]. It shows the importance of considering individual, community, and policy layers as a holistic system to improve physical activity.…”

“…Most studies show that a mixed-use neighborhood, public transportation, and complete streets that support walking and biking could encourage pedestrian travel and physical activity [22][23][24]. The social environment and recreation facilities also play an important role in increasing physical activity [7,12,24,25]. Neighborhood safety is related to people's mobility patterns, especially for older adults [26].…”

“…At the policy level, urban planning literature identifies the role of zoning [32,37] and cross-agency collaboration [9,16,38,39] in promoting community health. At the community level, research shows that physical activity is related to community features, including mixed-use neighborhoods, transportation services, complete streets [22][23][24], recreation and social activity [7,12,24,25], perceptions of safety [27][28][29], and metro status [5,6,39]. We use demographic structure to capture the individual level, including income, race, age, and commuting time.…”

“…The policy environment, such as community planning and cross-agency collaboration, are important factors contributing to those community features [9][10][11]. Creating an active-friendly environment requires a multi-level socio-ecological approach with local policies targeting social, physical, and environmental determinants of health that support physical activity [8,12,13]. This study contributes to the growing research on the impact of the community environment on physical activity, by giving attention to transportation services, recreation programs and perceptions of safety, as well as urban planning and cross-agency collaboration.…”

The effects of the built environment on physical activity and health

“…This indicates that not only the definition of the 190 191 chapter 9 chapter 9 context in which physical activity takes place matters, but also the amount of time that is spent in this context. Finally, a recent review concluded that there is a need of studies that measure the physical environment objectively with methods that measure the environmental exposure beyond home locations and combine this with multiple levels of the socio-ecological approach [292].…”