IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v8y2011i2p341-357d11191.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Neighbourhood Environment Correlates of Physical Activity: A Study of Eight Czech Regional Towns

Author

Listed:
  • Dagmar Sigmundová

    (Center for Kinanthropology Research, Faculty of Physical Culture, Palacky University in Olomouc, Tr. Miru 115, Olomouc 77111, Czech Republic)

  • Walid El Ansari

    (Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of Gloucestershire, Oxstalls Campus, Oxstalls Lane, Gloucester GL2 9HW, UK)

  • Erik Sigmund

    (Center for Kinanthropology Research, Faculty of Physical Culture, Palacky University in Olomouc, Tr. Miru 115, Olomouc 77111, Czech Republic)

Abstract

An adequate amount of physical activity (PA) is a key factor that is associated with good health. This study assessed socio-environmental factors associated with meeting the health recommendations for PA (achieving 10,000 steps per day). In total, 1,653 respondents randomly selected from across eight regional towns (each >90,000 inhabitants) in the Czech Republic participated in the study. The ANEWS questionnaire assessed the environment in neighbourhoods, and participants’ weekly PA was objectively monitored (Yamax Digiwalker SW-700 pedometer). About 24% of participants were sufficiently active, 27% were highly active; 28% participants were overweight and 5% were obese. Although BMI was significantly inversely associated with the daily step counts achieved only in females, for both genders, BMI was generally not significantly associated with the criterion of achieving 10,000 steps per day during the week. Increased BMI in both genders was accompanied with a decline in participation in organized PA and with increasing age. As regards to the demographic/lifestyle factors, for females, more participation in organized PA was significantly positively correlated with the achieved daily step counts. In contrast, older age and higher BMI (for females) and smoking (for males) were significantly negatively correlated with the achieved daily step counts. In terms of the environmental aspects, pleasant environments were significantly positively correlated to daily step counts for both genders. Additionally, for males, better residencies (more family homes rather than apartment blocks) in the neighbourhood were significantly positively correlated with their daily step counts. For females, less accessibility of shops and non-sport facilities (depending on walking distance in minutes) were significantly negatively correlated to the achieved daily step counts. Individuals who lived in pleasant neighbourhoods, with better access to shops and who participated in organized PA (≥2 times a week) tended to meet the recommendations for health-enhancing PA levels. The creation of physical activity-friendly environments could be associated with enhancing people’s achieved daily step counts and meeting the health criteria for PA.

Suggested Citation

  • Dagmar Sigmundová & Walid El Ansari & Erik Sigmund, 2011. "Neighbourhood Environment Correlates of Physical Activity: A Study of Eight Czech Regional Towns," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-17, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:8:y:2011:i:2:p:341-357:d:11191
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/8/2/341/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/8/2/341/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Powell, K.E. & Martin, L.M. & Chowdhury, P.P., 2003. "Places to Walk: Convenience and Regular Physical Activity," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 93(9), pages 1519-1521.
    2. Saelens, B.E. & Sallis, J.F. & Black, J.B. & Chen, D., 2003. "Neighborhood-Based Differences in Physical Activity: An Environment Scale Evaluation," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 93(9), pages 1552-1558.
    3. Frank, Lawrence Douglas & Saelens, Brian E. & Powell, Ken E. & Chapman, James E., 2007. "Stepping towards causation: Do built environments or neighborhood and travel preferences explain physical activity, driving, and obesity?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(9), pages 1898-1914, November.
    4. Bentley, Rebecca & Jolley, Damien & Kavanagh, Anne Marie, 2010. "Local environments as determinants of walking in Melbourne, Australia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 1806-1815, June.
    5. Sallis, James F. & Saelens, Brian E. & Frank, Lawrence D. & Conway, Terry L. & Slymen, Donald J. & Cain, Kelli L. & Chapman, James E. & Kerr, Jacqueline, 2009. "Neighborhood built environment and income: Examining multiple health outcomes," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(7), pages 1285-1293, April.
    6. Brownson, R.C. & Chang, J.J. & Eyler, A.A. & Ainsworth, B.E. & Kirtland, K.A. & Saelens, B.E. & Sallis, J.F., 2004. "Measuring the Environment for Friendliness Toward Physical Activity: A Comparison of the Reliability of 3 Questionnaires," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 94(3), pages 473-483.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gerardo Vasquez & Jennifer Salinas & Jennifer Molokwu & Gurjeet Shokar & Silvia Flores-Luevano & Adam Alomari & Navkiran K. Shokar, 2018. "Physical Activity in Older Mexican Americans Living in Two Cities on the U.S.-Mexico Border," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-11, August.
    2. Amer Habibullah & Nawaf Alhajaj & Ahmad Fallatah, 2022. "One-Kilometer Walking Limit during COVID-19: Evaluating Accessibility to Residential Public Open Spaces in a Major Saudi City," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-16, October.
    3. Dagmar Sigmundová & Jana Vašíčková & Jiří Stelzer & Emil Řepka, 2013. "The Influence of Monitoring Interval on Data Measurement: An Analysis of Step Counts of University Students," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-13, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Neatt, Kevin & Millward, Hugh & Spinney, Jamie, 2017. "Neighborhood walking densities: A multivariate analysis in Halifax, Canada," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 9-16.
    2. Sun, Bindong & Yan, Hong & Zhang, Tinglin, 2017. "Built environmental impacts on individual mode choice and BMI: Evidence from China," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 11-21.
    3. De Meester, Femke & Van Dyck, Delfien & De Bourdeaudhuij, Ilse & Deforche, Benedicte & Cardon, Greet, 2013. "Do psychosocial factors moderate the association between neighborhood walkability and adolescents' physical activity?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 1-9.
    4. Courtney Coughenour & Hanns de la Fuente-Mella & Alexander Paz, 2019. "Analysis of Self-Reported Walking for Transit in a Sprawling Urban Metropolitan Area in the Western U.S," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-16, February.
    5. Jun-Hyun Kim & Chanam Lee & Wonmin Sohn, 2016. "Urban Natural Environments, Obesity, and Health-Related Quality of Life among Hispanic Children Living in Inner-City Neighborhoods," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-15, January.
    6. Bentley, Rebecca & Jolley, Damien & Kavanagh, Anne Marie, 2010. "Local environments as determinants of walking in Melbourne, Australia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 1806-1815, June.
    7. Winters, Meghan & Voss, Christine & Ashe, Maureen C. & Gutteridge, Kaitlyn & McKay, Heather & Sims-Gould, Joanie, 2015. "Where do they go and how do they get there? Older adults' travel behaviour in a highly walkable environment," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 304-312.
    8. Gerlinde Grasser & Delfien Dyck & Sylvia Titze & Willibald Stronegger, 2013. "Objectively measured walkability and active transport and weight-related outcomes in adults: a systematic review," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 58(4), pages 615-625, August.
    9. Alba Martínez-García & Eva María Trescastro-López & María Eugenia Galiana-Sánchez & Pamela Pereyra-Zamora, 2019. "Data Collection Instruments for Obesogenic Environments in Adults: A Scoping Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(8), pages 1-27, April.
    10. Ayse Ozbil & Tugce Gurleyen & Demet Yesiltepe & Ezgi Zunbuloglu, 2019. "Comparative Associations of Street Network Design, Streetscape Attributes and Land-Use Characteristics on Pedestrian Flows in Peripheral Neighbourhoods," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(10), pages 1-23, May.
    11. Katie Crist & Tarik Benmarhnia & Steven Zamora & Jiue-An Yang & Dorothy D. Sears & Loki Natarajan & Lindsay Dillon & James F. Sallis & Marta M. Jankowska, 2021. "Device-Measured and Self-Reported Active Travel Associations with Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors in an Ethnically Diverse Sample of Adults," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(8), pages 1-16, April.
    12. Diego Sales & Victor Matsudo & Mauro Fisberg & Clemens Drenowatz & Adilson Marques & Gerson Ferrari, 2022. "Perception of the Neighborhood Environment, Physical Activity by Domain and Sitting Time in Brazilian Adults," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-14, November.
    13. Dan Andersson & Lina Wahlgren & Karin Sofia Elisabeth Olsson & Peter Schantz, 2023. "Pedestrians’ Perceptions of Motorized Traffic Variables in Relation to Appraisals of Urban Route Environments," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(4), pages 1-27, February.
    14. Jinhyun Hong & Cynthia Chen, 2014. "The role of the built environment on perceived safety from crime and walking: examining direct and indirect impacts," Transportation, Springer, vol. 41(6), pages 1171-1185, November.
    15. Cho, Gi-Hyoug & Rodríguez, Daniel A., 2014. "The influence of residential dissonance on physical activity and walking: evidence from the Montgomery County, MD, and Twin Cities, MN, areas," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 259-267.
    16. Cutts, Bethany B. & Darby, Kate J. & Boone, Christopher G. & Brewis, Alexandra, 2009. "City structure, obesity, and environmental justice: An integrated analysis of physical and social barriers to walkable streets and park access," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(9), pages 1314-1322, November.
    17. Tadej Brezina & Anita Graser & Ulrich Leth, 2017. "Geometric methods for estimating representative sidewalk widths applied to Vienna’s streetscape surfaces database," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 157-174, April.
    18. Naznin Sultana Daisy & Lei Liu & Hugh Millward, 2020. "Trip chaining propensity and tour mode choice of out-of-home workers: evidence from a mid-sized Canadian city," Transportation, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 763-792, April.
    19. Van Dyck, Delfien & Cerin, Ester & Conway, Terry L. & De Bourdeaudhuij, Ilse & Owen, Neville & Kerr, Jacqueline & Cardon, Greet & Frank, Lawrence D. & Saelens, Brian E. & Sallis, James F., 2012. "Associations between perceived neighborhood environmental attributes and adults’ sedentary behavior: Findings from the USA, Australia and Belgium," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(9), pages 1375-1384.
    20. Hoehner, Christine M. & Handy, Susan L. & Yan, Yan & Blair, Steven N. & Berrigan, David, 2011. "Association between neighborhood walkability, cardiorespiratory fitness and body-mass index," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(12), pages 1707-1716.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:8:y:2011:i:2:p:341-357:d:11191. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.