Neighborhood environment plays role in walking behaviors for middle-aged and older adults
| January 20, 2010 | |
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Having an interesting and useful place to walk to may increase the amount of exercise taken by middle-aged and older adults, a recent study finds.
Dr. Kelly Evenson
Kelly R. Evenson, PhD, research associate professor of epidemiology at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, collaborated on a study that sampled more than 5,500 ethnically diverse men and women aged 45 to 84 from communities across the country. Evenson and colleagues found that the neighborhood environment may play a role in physical activity, whereby residential density and the presence of retail businesses were associated with more frequent walking. The study, “Land Use, Residential Density and Walking: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis,” is published in the November 2009 issue of American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
“The relationships we found between neighborhoods and walking emphasize the need for collaboration between public health professionals, traffic engineers, and city planners to understand how urban areas can be improved for residents,” Evenson said.
Other study authors include Daniel Rodriguez, PhD, lead author and associate professor of city and regional planning in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill College of Arts and Sciences; and from University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Ana Diez-Roux, MD, PhD, professor of epidemiology, and Shannon Brines, MS, research computer specialist and lecturer in the School of Natural Resources and Environment.
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UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: Ramona DuBose, director of communications, (919) 966-7467 or ramona_dubose@unc.edu. |
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