New International Research Identified Key Neighborhood Characteristics That Encourage Residents To Walk Or Cycle

It has long been known that opting to walk or ride your bike is a much healthier option than hopping in your car and sitting in traffic.
Not only does your choice to ditch the engine mitigate environmental pollution, but you can also cut down on cardiovascular health risks throughout your day-to-day.
Obviously, though, these modes of transportation are just not feasible in every single community for a plethora of reasons.
But just recently, a new global study conducted by scientists at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Canada has uncovered some of the top neighborhood characteristics that encourage residents to walk or cycle.
“Cycling and walking are two excellent ways to weave exercise into daily life and meet those fitness goals outlined in many New Year’s resolutions. We sought to understand how factors in the built environment can either promote or discourage a person from engaging in these forms of physical activity,” SFU Professor Scott Lear said.
The study included nearly 40,000 adults between the ages of 35 and 70 who lived in over 350 urban communities.
These communities hailed from a range of World Bank-classified low, middle, and high-income countries.
Canada, Sweden, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates were the four high-income countries studied; meanwhile, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, and Tanzania were the four low-income countries. Additionally, five lower-middle-income countries were studied, including Colombia, China, Palestine, Iran, and Kyrgyzstan.
Finally, eight upper middle-income countries were also included in the study– Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkey, and South Africa.

Monkey Business – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual people
The researchers ultimately found that the adults who are more likely to walk over 150 minutes each week– for either commuting or leisure– reported that their neighborhoods were home to more desirable features.
The choice to walk or cycle was linked to land use diversity– in which neighborhoods have amenities, like parks or stores, within a 20-minute walking distance. Other features included street connectivity– which refers to the number of three-way and four-way intersections– as well as levels of crime.
Today, the frequency of physical inactivity is rising around the globe. And even in high-income countries like Canada, over 70% of adults are not physically active.
“One in four adults do not meet the globally recommended activity level of at least 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity, and this trend has negative consequences for our health,” Lear said.
So now, the researchers are advocating for further studies– which should analyze local factors that may impact how built environments are associated with walking and cycling.
To read the study’s complete findings, which have since been published in Science Direct, visit the link here.
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