Neighbourhood Walkability and Greenness Exhibit Different Associations with Social Participation in Older Males and Females: An Analysis of the CLSA.

We explored the relationship between neighbourhood and social participation among older adults using a Living Environments and Active Aging Framework. This prospective cohort study used baseline data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) with a 3-year follow-up. Three aspects of social participation were the outcomes; walkability and greenness at baseline were exposure variables.

Insights from neighbourhood walking interviews using the Living Environments and Active Aging Framework (LEAAF) in community-dwelling older adults.

We aimed to understand whether neighbourhood characteristics are associated with movement and social behaviors using walking interviews with 28 community-dwelling older adults (aged 65+). Results indicated support for each component and each relationship in our proposed "Living Environments and Active Aging Framework". Additional themes such as neighbourhoods with children, moving to neighbourhoods with opportunities for social activity and movement, and lingering effects of pandemic closures provided novel insights into the relationship between the living environment (neighbourhood) and active aging.

Getting groceries during the pandemic: How transit remained important despite the rise of e-delivery.

Background: We model the use of public transit to reach grocery stores and the use of online delivery services to get groceries, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic among people who used transit regularly prior to the crisis.

Methods: We draw upon a panel survey of pre-pandemic transit riders in Vancouver and Toronto. We conduct multivariable two-step tobit regression models that predict the likelihood of a respondent using transit as their primary mode for getting groceries before the pandemic (step 1) and then during the pandemic (step 2).

Integrating coordination of food purchasing into activity space-based food environment research: Toward a household perspective.

Despite the advances in person-based approaches to studying food environments, most studies using these approaches have relied on individual-centered activity space measures and largely ignored cohabiting household members who play crucial roles in shaping an individual's food access, food behaviors, and diet. This can be problematic for completely capturing food environments relevant to an individual and add uncertainties to explorations of how individuals' food environments relate to their food behaviors. This viewpoint discusses the need for, and implications of, considering household members when measuring food access and disentangling the behavioral pathways connecting the food environment to diet.

Neighborhood Fast-Food Environments and Hypertension in Canadian Adults.

Introduction: Hypertension is a leading cause of cardiovascular disease and premature death worldwide. Neighborhoods characterized by a high proportion of fast-food outlets may also contribute to hypertension in residents; however, limited research has explored these associations. This cross-sectional study assessed the associations between neighborhood fast-food environments, measured hypertension, and self-reported hypertension.

Survey-derived activity space-based exposures to fast food outlets and their cross-sectional associations with use of fast food outlets, diet quality and BMI.

There is a need for conceptual and methodological innovation in food environment-health research. We compared different operationalizations of survey-derived activity space exposures to fast food outlets (FFOs) in associations with use of FFO, diet quality and body mass index (BMI). FFO exposure was determined for home, work and a maximum of sixteen other locations reported by 1728 Dutch adults.

The availability and distribution of vaping retailers across Ontario neighbourhoods, 2016-2019.

Objectives: To characterize the distribution of vaping retailers and examine the association between neighbourhood income and vaping retailer availability in Ontario prior to and after regulatory changes to the vaping market in 2018.

Methods: We quantified vaping access by number of vaping retailers for 19,964 dissemination areas (DAs) in Ontario and percentage of schools near a vaping retailer. We used mixed-effects regression models to examine the associations between vaping access and neighbourhood income in 2018 and 2019.

Facing the future of transit ridership: shifting attitudes towards public transit and auto ownership among transit riders during COVID-19.

Unlabelled: Public transit agencies face a transformed landscape of rider demand and political support as the COVID-19 pandemic recedes. We explore people's motivations for returning to or avoiding public transit a year into the pandemic. We draw on a March 2021 follow-up survey of over 1,900 people who rode transit regularly prior to the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto and Vancouver, Canada, and who took part in a prior survey on the topic in May 2020.

Who's cooking tonight? A time-use study of coupled adults in Toronto, Canada.

Understanding how coupled adults arrange food-related labor in relation to their daily time allocation is of great importance because different arrangements may have implications for diet-related health and gender equity. Studies from the time-use perspective argue that daily activities such as work, caregiving, and non-food-related housework can potentially compete for time with foodwork. However, studies in this regard are mostly centered on individual-level analyses.

Short run "rebound effect" of COVID on the transport carbon footprint.

The COVID-19 pandemic completely transformed the mobility of cities. The restrictions on movement led to "empty cities" throughout the world, with some environmental effects in terms of clean air and the reduction of CO emissions. This research considers how COVID-19 mobility restrictions have affected the carbon footprint of four medium-sized Chilean cities (Coronel, Temuco, Valdivia, and Osorno) that have environmental problems and are highly dependent on motorized systems.

Spatial Access to Sexual Health Clinics Measured Through a Novel Accessibility Score in Toronto, Canada.

Background: Understanding spatial access to sexual health services will provide the foundation for future resource planning and allocation. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the potential geographic access to sexual health services in Toronto, Canada, by developing a novel accessibility index to sexual health clinics.

Methods: We created an accessibility index using the 2-step floating catchment area method to quantify neighborhood-level access to sexual health clinics.

Rethinking walkability and developing a conceptual definition of active living environments to guide research and practice.

Background: Walkability is a popular term used to describe aspects of the built and social environment that have important population-level impacts on physical activity, energy balance, and health. Although the term is widely used by researchers, practitioners, and the general public, and multiple operational definitions and walkability measurement tools exist, there are is no agreed-upon conceptual definition of walkability.

Method: To address this gap, researchers from Memorial University of Newfoundland hosted "The Future of Walkability Measures Workshop" in association with researchers from the Canadian Urban Environmental Health Research Consortium (CANUE) in November 2017.

A pan-Canadian dataset of neighbourhood retail food environment measures using Statistics Canada's Business Register.

Background: The objective of this study was to create the Canadian Food Environment Dataset (Can-FED) and to demonstrate its validity.

Data And Methods: Food outlet data were extracted from Statistics Canada's Business Register (BR) in 2018. Retail food environment access measures (both absolute and relative measures) were calculated using network buffers around the centroid of 56,589 dissemination areas in Canada.

The Association between Fast Food Outlets and Overweight in Adolescents Is Confounded by Neighbourhood Deprivation: A Longitudinal Analysis of the Millennium Cohort Study.

The aim of our study is to utilise longitudinal data to explore if the association between the retail fast food environment and overweight in adolescents is confounded by neighbourhood deprivation. Data from the Millennium Cohort Study for England were obtained for waves 5 (ages 11/12; 2011/12; = 13,469) and 6 (ages 14/15; 2014/15; = 11,884). Our outcome variable was overweight/obesity defined using age and sex-specific International Obesity Task Force cut points.

The uneven impacts of avoiding public transit on riders' access to healthcare during COVID-19.

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, many urban residents stopped riding public transit despite their reliance on it to reach essential services like healthcare. Few studies have examined the implications of public transit reliance on riders' ability to reach healthcare when transit is disrupted. To understand how shocks to transportation systems impact healthcare access, this study measures the impact of avoiding public transit on the ability of riders to access healthcare and pharmacy services during lockdowns.

An exploration of how meal preparation activities relate to self-rated time pressure, stress, and health in Canada: A time use approach.

While previous work has provided a foundation for understanding the importance of the links between time use and diet, there has been little done to link time use to health outcomes. In this study, time use and self-rated health variables from the 2015 Time Use Cycle of Statistics Canada's General Social Survey are used to explore whether there are direct associations between time spent on meal preparation and health for Canadian Adults. In addition, this paper uses respondents' sequences of activities data from a time use diary to provide novel findings about the context of activities that precede and follow meal preparation.

Food Environments and Hepatocellular Carcinoma Incidence.

Research into the potential impact of the food environment on liver cancer incidence has been limited, though there is evidence showing that specific foods and nutrients may be potential risk or preventive factors. Data on hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cases were obtained from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) cancer registries. The county-level food environment was assessed using the Modified Retail Food Environment Index (mRFEI), a continuous score that measures the number of healthy and less healthy food retailers within counties.

A GPS-Based Framework for Understanding Outdoor Mobility Patterns of Older Adults with Dementia: An Exploratory Study.

Introduction: An active lifestyle may protect older adults from cognitive decline. Yet, due to the complex nature of outdoor environments, many people living with dementia experience decreased access to outdoor activities. In this context, conceptualizing and measuring outdoor mobility is of great significance.

Bringing the "Place" to Life-Space in Gerontology Research.

Understanding older adults' relationships with their environments and the way this relationship evolves over time have been increasingly acknowledged in gerontological research. This relationship is often measured in terms of life-space, defined as the spatial area through which a person moves within a specific period of time. Life-space is traditionally reported using questionnaires or travel diaries and is, thus, subject to inaccuracies.

Association between time-weighted activity space-based exposures to fast food outlets and fast food consumption among young adults in urban Canada.

Background: Despite increased attention on retail food environments and fast food consumption, results from previous studies have been inconsistent. Variation in measurement of exposure to retail food environments and the context of the built environment are possible reasons for inconsistencies. The purpose of the current study is to examine the association between exposure to fast food environment and fast food consumption among young adults, and to explore possible associations between built environment and fast food consumption.

The Social Geography of Partner Selection in Toronto, Canada: A Qualitative Description of "Convection Mixing".

The geographic distribution of sexually transmitted infections reflects the underlying social process of sexual partner selection. This qualitative study explored the social geography of partner selection among sexual minority men and used the results to develop a mid-range theory of STI transmission. In-depth interviews with 31 sexual minority men who lived, worked, or socialized in Toronto, Canada, occurred in June and July 2016.

The evolution of Health & Place: Text mining papers published between 1995 and 2018.

We examine trends in words/terms published in Health & Place between 1995 and 2018. Terms used have diversified over this period, including a decline in 'health' overall, as well as greater usage of 'diet', 'alcohol' and 'depression'. There was a noticeable increase in using 'neighbourhood' to describe context.

Association between residential self-selection and non-residential built environment exposures.

Studies employing 'activity space' measures of the built environment do not always account for how individuals self-select into different residential and non-residential environments when testing associations with physical activity. To date, no study has examined whether preferences for walkable residential neighborhoods predict exposure to other walkable neighborhoods in non-residential activity spaces. Using a sample of 9783 university students from Toronto, Canada, we assessed how self-reported preferences for a walkable neighborhood predicted their exposure to other walkable, non-residential environments, and further whether these preferences confounded observed walkability-physical activity associations.

Session 4 discussion: The built environment.

The following is a transcript from "The Built Environment" session during the Ingestive Behavior Research Conference at Purdue University.