Neighbourhood Built Environment Influences on Physical Activity among Adults: A Systematized Review of Qualitative Evidence

Abstract

Qualitative studies can provide important information about how and why the built environment impacts physical activity decision-making—information that is important for informing local urban policies. We undertook a systematized literature review to synthesize findings from qualitative studies exploring how the built environment influences physical activity in adults. Our review included 36 peer-reviewed qualitative studies published from 1998 onwards. Our findings complemented existing quantitative evidence and provided additional insight into how functional, aesthetic, destination, and safety built characteristics influence physical activity decision-making. Sociodemographic characteristics (age, sex, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status) also impacted the BE’s influence on physical activity. Our review findings reinforce the need for synergy between transportation planning, urban design, landscape architecture, road engineering, parks and recreation, bylaw enforcement, and public health to be involved in creating neighbourhood environments that support physical activity. Our findings support a need for local neighbourhood citizens and associations with representation from individuals and groups with different sociodemographic backgrounds to have input into neighbourhood environment planning process.

The Role of Urban Morphology Design on Enhancing Physical Activities and Public Health

“…The results of BEPAS confirm that walking in Europe is directly related to physical activity and associates with important economic advantages such as reducing costs [65]. Considering two distinct studies conducted on walkability in neighborhoods and physical activity in America and Australia, the results represent an effective relationship between the socioeconomic status of the environment, walking and physical activity [66][67][68]. Based on the report of the American surgical association (ASA), physical activity results in improving public health, and at least 31min of daily walking is regarded as essential for individuals [19].…”

Comprehensive 5P framework for active aging using the ecological approach: an iterative systematic review

“…Land-use Shopping and obtaining services The arrangement of activities and the the impact between trip origin and destinations Amount of activity in a given area The proximity of different land uses [23,33,[41][42][43] Service proximity [23,44] Public facilities [23,33,45] Land use mix diversity / land-use composition Amenities and facilities, such as library, community center, local shops, traditional clinics, community outreach projects [33,41,43,[46][47][48][49] Facilities management [50] Exercise, sports, and recreation facilities [ Neighborhood Safety [9] Residential density/density of housing [41,[47][48][49]93] Older Residential Care Facility [70] Outdoor gardens [56,94] Type of housing [95][96][97] Process Social Environment Social inequalities [69] Social demography [31,101] Social democracy [41,102] Participation (in the planning, implementation and evaluation process, civic participation)…”

“…Health care services [7,40,57,86] Limited income/pension [40] Insurance coverage [40] Socioeconomic status [31,41] Affordable housing [7] Car ownership [41] Economic security Homeownership [1] Household income [23] Living situation [ Incidence of disease [23] Pain feeling [23] society and the amount of their involvement in their community. Several studies conducted on social well-being were assessed, and as a result of which it was found that to propose the level of social well-being for a group of people, their performance must be studied in the following areas:…”

“…Also, important components of social environement that affect an increased active aging include different social contacts, increased social involvement, wide social network, living children, ethnic homogenity, increased sense of neighborliness, increased literacy, increased social and economic status, increased workforce involvement, time spent with friends, and an age-specific community [ There are some specific characteristics of the social environment that requires the elderly to meet specific demands leading to suboptimal active aging. These may include family's financial problems, a partner with health problems, unrealistic expectations of the person from their friends and families, and weak social and economic status of the area which is recognized as economic environment [1,7,23,31,40,41,70,78,86]. In addition, there is also the cultural environment which consists of religious activity, cultural events/ rituals/social activity, and sense of place [42,53,54,57,80,85,87].…”

The Influence of the Objective and Subjective Physical Neighbourhood Environment on the Physical Activity of Older Adults: A Case Study in the Malaysian Neighbourhoods of Johor Bahru

“…The PNES measures were based on the Neighbourhood Environment Walkability Scale-Abbreviated (NEWS-A), which includes the perceived measures of the neighbourhood environment. This scale was considered suitable as many past studies in diverse settings have established a connection between perceived PNE and PA in older adults [26][27][28][29][30][31]. Past studies have also found that perceived PNE (PNES) measures such as perceived residential density [13,27,32], land use diversity [13,27,[32][33][34], accessibility [13,32,34,35], street connectivity [13,32], infrastructure for walking and cycling [34,36], neighbourhood aesthetics [13,32,37], safety from traffic hazards [30,32,34,37] and safety from crime [30,34,37,38] were significantly associated with PA.…”