Walkability Indexes, Perceptions, and Walking Behaviors of Older Adults

Neighborhood walk-friendliness has become a focus for researchers and practitioners who wish to improve the health of older adults by incentivizing and providing opportunities to walk as part of daily routines. However, most research has been carried out in larger urban areas (Leslie, et al., 2005; Bracy et al., 2014; Cole, Dunn, Hunter, Owen, & Sugiyama, 2015) with an emphasis on walking for transportation and the general population. With the rapid increase in the US older adult population, most of whom live in suburban low-density residential areas, a better understanding of walk-friendliness in such a context is needed. This study investigates the associations between objective walkability and perceived neighborhood walk-friendliness, and walking behaviors among older adults in Tallahassee, Florida and surrounding county. To better understand this relationship this dissertation uses the GIS Walkability Index (Frank et al., 2010) and the Walk Score™ as measures of objective walkability. Quantitative data from a neighborhood survey and qualitative data from walk along interviews were used to capture older adult’s perception of neighborhood walk-friendliness. This dissertation seeks to determine; i) the relationship between objective walkability and the perceptions of neighborhood walk-friendliness of older adults themselves; ii) the extent to which objective walkability and perceived neighborhood walk-friendliness influence walking behaviors, and iii) how micro-environmental factors influence older adult’s walking activities. A multiple methods approach is used in this study, where the main approach is quantitative, and the qualitative inquiry provides a deeper understanding of older adult’s perceptions of neighborhood walk-friendliness at the micro-environmental level. The findings of this dissertation show that the walkability indexes are significant predictors of walks for transportation but do not predict whether older adults engage in any brisk or leisure walking. The perceived count of destination types was found to be a strong predictor of any destination walking and played a mediating role between the GIS Index and any destination walking. However, perceived walk-friendliness did not show the same significance as the perceived count of destination types. Finally, the walk-along interviews revealed that the micro-environmental factors influence the older participants’ decision about when and where to walk rather than whether they walk at all. It also provided deeper understanding of the perceived walk-friendliness variable.