The Uncommon Impact of Common Environmental Details on Walking in Older Adults

Abstract

Walking is the most common form of physical activity amongst older adults. Older adults’ walking behaviors have been linked to objective and perceived neighborhood and street-level environmental attributes, such as pavement quality and mixed land uses. To help identify components of walkable environments, this paper examines some of these environmental attributes and explores their influence on this population’s walking behaviors. It draws on focus group and interview data collected from 22 purposively sampled older adults aged 60 years and over. These participants presented a range of functional and cognitive impairments including stroke and dementia. In line with past research, we detail how various everyday aspects of urban environments, such as steps, curbs and uneven pavements, can, in combination with person-related factors, complicate older adults’ outdoor mobility while others, such as handrails and benches, seem to support and even encourage movement. Importantly, we delineate the influence of perceptions on mobility choices. We found that, in some instances, it is the meanings and possibilities that older adults derive from aspects of the environment, such as street cameras and underpasses, rather than the aspects per se, which shape behavior. The implications for policy and practice are considered.

Exploring the Associations of Walking Behavior with Neighborhood Environments by Different Life Stages: A Cross-Sectional Study in a Smaller Chinese City

“…The neighborhood environment is significantly transformed by the schools' affiliations over time into a specific type of neighborhood, geared specially for the after-school market and of little value to anyone else. As older adults are more sensitive and likely to be affected by the neighborhood environment [40][41][42], the educational amenities, therefore, negatively impact on walking duration of middle-aged adults in our study.…”

“…Globally, a growing number of studies have focused on children and older people, due to the differentiation in their physiology and perception [35,36,[40][41][42][43][44]. We acknowledge that studies of older people and children are crucial for walkability, but this study focuses on the "working age population" (i.e., those aged between 18 and 59) in order to avoid the potential effects of physiological differentiation upon the exposure-outcome relationship.…”

Associations of perceived daily walking duration with residential food outlets in small Chinese cities: a cross-sectional study

“…Secondly, to further understand the impact of food outlets on DailyWalk among different age groups, participants were categorised into younger adults (aged [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35] and older adults (aged 36-59). This threshold was the same as that used in previous studies in Chinese contexts [15,50].…”

“…a Analyses adjusted for city (Yuncheng, Suihua), gender (male, female), age groups (18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35), education attainment (junior college or below, bachelor or higher), household income (3,000 or below, 3,001-5,000, 5,001+), occupation (employed, self-employed, others).…”

“…Furthermore, different age groups might have different demands for the same amenities, leading to different associations of PA to the same neighbourhood environment [15][16][17][18][19]. Therefore, we contend that before using land-use mix as a whole, different amenities need to be separately analysed in relation to their different functions and demands in local contexts.…”