Effects of the perceived and objectively assessed environment on physical activity in adults and children

2012-08-09The purpose of this dissertation is to examine multiple methods of measuring the neighborhood environment, and how those methods may differentially impact physical activity in adults and children. The first paper examines the correlates of discordance between perceived and objective measures of neighborhood crime safety and physical disorder. The second paper uses neighborhood audits and resident reports to develop distinct neighborhood typologies, and then correlates those typologies with active commuting to school by children. The third paper uses longitudinal data to test potential causal mechanisms linking psychosocial factors, perceptions of the built environment, and physical activity in adults. ❧ In the first paper, social control was consistently associated with perceiving the neighborhood more positively than objective statistics indicated. Hispanic ethnicity, time spent in the neighborhood, and acculturation were associated with perceiving the neighborhood more negatively than objective data indicated. ❧ In the second paper, both assessments methods revealed a profile characterized by moderate levels on all environmental variables. This profile was associated with the highest probability of actively commuting to school, while a profile characterized by low-density single-family residential development was associated with the lowest probability. ❧ In the third paper, the overall best fitting model was one in which the perceived built environment affected intra- and inter-personal factors, which in turn affected MVPA. However, there was no evidence of any mediation effects within this model. ❧ Taken together, the results of the three papers indicate that our understanding of the environment is method dependent; different methods can lead to quite different depictions of a given area. Further, perceptions of individuals within the same geographic region can also vary, indicating that a unique “filtering” process occurs in terms of processing the environment for each person. The exact nature of this filtering process remains unclear. However, we can say that attempts to change the environment to induce more physical activity may find more success if they can identify segments of the population who are at particular risk for having activity hindering perceptions, and develop interventions to target them accordingly