Assessing the maturity of community-level built environments for older adults' active behaviors: highlights from a psychometric test.

The community development approach to healthy active aging advocates constant availability of relevant built environment factors in the community as a requirement for active behaviors. In this paper, scores from a new scale measuring these factors are interpreted to guide future assessment of active built environments in the community. Participants were 515 older adults in Accra aged 60 years or more who met some inclusion criteria. Principal component analysis (with varimax rotation) and confirmatory factor analysis were used to select relevant items and assess the psychometric properties of the final scale. Principal component analysis produced a six-factor solution with 33 items, and the final scale had a good internal consistency (Cronbach's α=0,96; factor loading ≥0,50). The minimum and maximum scores of the scale are 33 and 99 respectively, and the scale indicates low maturity, moderate maturity and high maturity of walkable built environments with scores of 1-30, 34-66 and 67-99 respectively. The final scale, hereby called ACTIVE COMMUNITY, can be used to assess the maturity of active built environments to understand how community design projects are impacting active behaviors over time.