The Effects of Neighborhood Built Environment on Walking for Leisure and for Purpose Among Older People.

Background And Objectives: Characteristics of a neighborhood's built environment affect the walking behavior of older people, yet studies typically rely on small nonrepresentative samples that use either subjective reports or aggregate indicators from administrative sources to represent neighborhood characteristics. Our analyses examine the usefulness of a novel method for observing neighborhoods-virtual observations-and assess the extent to which virtual-based observations predict walking among older adults.

Research Design And Methods: Using Google Street View, we observed the neighborhoods of 2,224 older people and examined how characteristics of the neighborhood built environments are associated with the amount of time older people spend walking for leisure and purpose.