What shape is your neighbourhood? Investigating the micro geographies of physical activity
Section snippets
Background
Being physically active has demonstrated physical and mental health benefits. Residing in neighbourhoods that are more walkable and with better access to greenspace and local transport infrastructure has been associated with increased overall physical activity (Ball et al., 2007, Giles-Corti et al., 2009, Sallis et al., 2009, Witten et al., 2012). However, deeper understanding of the social determinants of health behaviours such as walking and cycling for transport, exercise, and physically
Methods
The four case study neighbourhoods were selected to provide contrast in levels of amenities, qualities and resources that support a range of physical activity, as measured by indices of walkability (a summary measure of street connectivity, landuse mix, dwelling density, retail floor area ration) (Badland et al., 2009), and density of local destinations (including eight domains covering education, transport, recreation, social and cultural, food retail, financial, health, and other retail) (
Results
Firstly we compare talk across the focus groups about where people in their suburb went for physical activity, under four headings: open spaces, significant qualities, streets, and everyday needs. Secondly, we explore what people from different areas conveyed in their talk about what is ‘near’ and what is ‘far’, so as to qualitatively understand ‘scale’ in neighbourhoods. Thirdly, we report differences and similarities in the data from across gender and labour force status groups (ethnicity
Discussion
We have shown that residents actively constructed or shaped ‘neighbourhoods’ in ways that took account of the local constraints and opportunities to live a physically active and healthy lifestyle. The study was conducted across four residential settings that varied in the opportunity structures they provided to residents, such as walkable built environments and quality, accessible public places. Residents' social practices around physical activity (where they went and how they engaged with
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the participants who contributed to the study, and research assistants who assisted with data collection and preparation. Financial support for this study was provided through The Health Research Council of New Zealand who funded the URBAN Study (HRC 07/356) and the Neighbourhood and Health Study (part of the Health Inequalities Research Programme – HRC 08/48). JP is supported by the European Research Council (grant number ERC-2010-StG Grant 263501).
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