Walkability, complete streets, and gender: Who benefits most?

Environmental and Mobility Strategies During Early COVID-19: Insights From an Empirical Study Focusing on Park Visitations in El Paso, TX

OBJECTIVES

We explored the importance of environmental and mobility strategies during early COVID-19 by age and ethnicity and investigated predictors of park visitations considering the COVID-19 impacts.

BACKGROUND

Parks are safe and accessible venues to stay active and reduce social isolation, which is especially important considering COVID-19 and the associated lockdowns.

METHODS

We analyzed online survey data from 683 residents (collected July 2020) of El Paso, TX, and objective measures of neighborhood park characteristics. Chi-square tests and mixed-effects logistic regression analyses were performed to examine the environmental/mobility strategies, personal and environmental factors, and park visitations, considering the COVID-19 impacts.

RESULTS

The percentage of those who visited (1+ times/week) parks or trails/paths in the neighborhood dropped from 41.7% to 19.5% since the start of COVID-19 (OR = 0.015, p < .001). Before COVID-19, middle-aged and older adults were less likely to visit parks than younger adults, while this difference became insignificant during early COVID-19. Hispanic adults were more likely to visit parks than non-Hispanics both before and during early COVID-19. Positive environmental predictors of park visitations included park availability in the neighborhood, proximity to the closest park, seeing people being physically active in the neighborhood, and neighborhood aesthetics.

CONCLUSIONS

Proximately located parks, trails, and paths well integrated into residential communities, and high aesthetic quality of the neighborhood are the potential features of pandemic-resilient communities and should be considered an important national priority to maintain and promote the health and well-being of the population, especially during pandemics like COVID-19.

Impacts of commute mode on body mass index: A longitudinal analysis before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

Introduction

COVID-19 has impacted millions of commuters by decreasing their mobility and transport patterns. While these changes in travel have been studied, less is known about how commute changes may have impacted individuals' body mass index (BMI). The present longitudinal study explores the relationship between commute mode and BMI of employed individuals in Montréal, Canada.

Methods

This study uses panel data drawn from two waves of the Montréal Mobility Survey (MMS) conducted before and during the COVID-19 pandemic (n = 458). BMI was modeled separately for women and men as a function of commuting mode, WalkScore©, sociodemographic, and behavioral covariates using a multilevel regression modeling approach.

Results

For women, BMI significantly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, but telecommuting frequency, and more specifically telecommuting as a replacement of driving, led to a statistically significant decrease in BMI. For men, higher levels of residential local accessibility decreased BMI, while telecommuting did not have a statistically significant effect on BMI.

Conclusions

This study's findings confirm previously observed gendered differences in the relations between the built environment, transport behaviors, and BMI, while offering new insights regarding the impacts of the changes in commute patterns linked to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since some of the COVID-19 impacts on commute are expected to be lasting, findings from this research can be of use by health and transport practitioners as they work towards generating policies that improve population health.

Perceived Walkability and Respective Urban Determinants: Insights from Bologna and Porto

Walking is undoubtedly a sustainable and healthy mode of transport. However, the decision to walk is influenced by many built environment and streetscape attributes. Specifically, the term walkability is used to describe the extent to which the urban environment is pedestrian-friendly, usually by quantifying multiple built environment attributes at the neighbourhood scale. The present study adopts a qualitative approach to evaluate perceived walkability. Based on a questionnaire (n = 1438) administered in the cities of Bologna and Porto, this paper analyses how respondents perceived and evaluated 19 built environment and streetscape attributes. An Exploratory Factor Analysis was carried out to examine the correlations between the various attributes and to identify the underlying walkability determinants. The analysis indicated that 13 attributes were highly correlated, resulting in four determinants: (i) urban ambiance, which includes land use and street design attributes, such as land use mix, enclosure, transparency, and architectural and landscape diversity; (ii) pedestrian infrastructure, which is related to sidewalk conditions; (iii) street connectivity and proximity to community facilities; and iv) access to other modes of transport. In turn, traffic safety and security were not correlated with perceived walkability in both cities. These findings suggest that specific urban design and pedestrian infrastructure attributes should be highly considered when formulating policies aiming to create more pedestrian-friendly cities, as well as in walkability studies and when developing walkability scores and indexes.

A comprehensive evaluation of physical activity on sidewalks and streets in three U.S. Cities

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Video-enhanced observation provides objective data on sidewalks/streets activity.

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Neighborhood-level walkability was strongly associated with sidewalks/streets use.

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Most people (67%) were walking; others were sitting, standing, cycling, jogging.

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Sidewalk/street activity varied by time of day, weather, & environmental condition.

A considerable proportion of outdoor physical activity (PA) is done on sidewalks/streets. The purpose of the current study was to create a comprehensive picture of PA and non-PA (sitting and standing) occurring on sidewalks/streets. A wearable video device was used to capture videos during 2019 in three different size (small, medium, large), U.S. cities along 24 observation routes (sidewalks/streets) located in 24 study areas that varied in walkability, income level, and minority composition. Videos were collected over the course of one year during different times of week and weekend days. Expert reviewers examined each video to extract data on counts of people engaged in different types of activities (e.g., walking) per minute of video. A total of 1154 individuals were described in 1237 min of video as either walking (66.9%), sitting/standing (25.7%), jogging (4.2%), cycling (1.8%) or skating/playing (1.4%). A greater number of active people/min were seen in the evening and in the small city (P < 0.05) while more non-PA people/min were observed in the medium city and during the weekend (P < 0.05). Active and non-PA people/min were associated with walkability, income, and minority composition. For instance, in high walkability, low income areas, 3.2 active people/min were observed in areas with a high percentage of non-minority residents compared to 0.9 active people /min in areas with a high percentage of minority residents. Sidewalks/street activities are related to dynamic interactions between social and physical environmental factors. The results of this study may serve as a reference to which future, similar evaluations can compare.

Study Protocol for the Evaluation of the Health Effects of Superblocks in Barcelona: The "Salut Als Carrers" (Health in the Streets) Project

Superblocks are currently being introduced in Barcelona to respond to the city's scarcity of green spaces and high levels of air pollution, traffic injuries, and sedentariness. The aim is to calm the streets by reducing the number of square meters dedicated to private vehicles and to reclaim part of this public space for people. Salut als Carrers (Health in the Streets) is a project to evaluate the potential environmental and health effects of the superblock model with an equity perspective in Barcelona. This study aims to explain the various interventions implemented in different neighborhoods in Barcelona and the methods that will be used to evaluate them in a quasi-experimental and health impact assessment (HIA) approaches. Given the complexity of the intervention evaluated, the project employs mixed methodologies. Quantitative methods include: (a) a pre-post health survey of 1200 people randomly selected from the municipal register asked about self-perceived health and quality of life, social support, mental health, mobility, physical activity, neighborhood characteristics, and housing; (b) pre-post environmental measurements, mainly of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), particulate matter of less than 10 µm (PM10), and particulate matter of less than 2.5 µm (PM2.5) and black carbon; (c) pre-post environmental walkability measures using the Microscale Audit of Pedestrian Streetscapes (MAPS) tool; (d) use of public space and physical activity levels using the System for Observing Play and Recreation in Communities (SOPARC), a validated observation tool; (e) pre-post traffic injury measures with a comparison group; and (f) the comparison and integration of pre-post assessment with previous HIAs and the improvement of future HIAs. Qualitative studies will be performed to analyze residents' perception of these effects by using: (a) various focus groups according to different participant characteristics who are more or less likely to use the superblocks; and (b) a guerrilla ethnography, which is a method that combines ethnographic observation and semi-structured interviews. This study, which evaluates the impact of an ambitious urban-renewal program on health, will help to assess the effectiveness of public policy in terms of health and health inequalities.