Review and special article
Neighborhood Environment and Physical Activity Among Youth: A Review

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Context

Research examining the association between environmental attributes and physical activity among youth is growing. An updated review of literature is needed to summarize the current evidence base, and to inform policies and environmental interventions to promote active lifestyles among young people.

Evidence acquisition

A literature search was conducted using the Active Living Research (ALR) literature database, an online database that codes study characteristics and results of published papers on built/social environment and physical activity/obesity/sedentary behavior. Papers in the ALR database were identified through PubMed, Web of Science, and SPORTDiscus using systematically developed and expert-validated search protocols. For the current review, additional inclusion criteria were used to select observational, quantitative studies among youth aged 3–18 years.

Evidence synthesis

Papers were categorized by design features, sample characteristics, and measurement mode. Relevant results were summarized, stratified by age (children or adolescents) and mode of measurement (objective or perceived) for environmental attributes and physical activity. Percentage of significant results was calculated.

Conclusions

Mode of measurement greatly influenced the consistency of associations between environmental attributes and youth physical activity. For both children and adolescents, the most consistent associations involved objectively measured environmental attributes and reported physical activity. The most supported correlates for children were walkability, traffic speed/volume, access/proximity to recreation facilities, land-use mix, and residential density. The most supported correlates for adolescents were land-use mix and residential density. These findings support several recommendations for policy and environmental change from such groups as the IOM and National Physical Activity Plan.

Section snippets

Context

Physical activity offers numerous health benefits to young people.1 It is recommended that youth participate in moderate to vigorous physical activity for at least 60 minutes daily.2 Recent accelerometer data2, 3 indicated, however, that only 42% of children and 8% of adolescents in the U.S. met this guideline.

Ecologic models postulate multiple environmental influences on physical activity.4 Growing literature from public health, transportation, urban planning, and leisure studies5, 6, 7 has

Data Sources

The present review used the Active Living Research (ALR) literature database, a publicly accessible online database that codes study characteristics and results of published papers on the relationship between built and social environment variables and physical activity, obesity, and sedentary behavior. The database can be accessed at www.activelivingresearch.org/litdb.

Since 2002, researchers at ALR have conducted semi-annual literature searches through PubMed, Web of Science, and SPORTDiscus,

General Characteristics of Papers Reviewed

A total of 103 papers were reviewed. Most studies were cross-sectional and conducted in North America (five in Canada, 68 in the U.S.). There has been a dramatic growth in the number of papers in the last few years, with 86% of papers published between 2005 and 2009. Sample sizes ranged from 52 to 68,288, with a median of 781. There were more studies of children than adolescents. A large majority of papers used only reported measures for neighborhood environment and for physical activity. For

Discussion

This review extracted 1721 results from 103 papers. A key finding was that mode of measurement influenced observed associations between neighborhood environment and youth physical activity (Table 7). Objectively measured environmental attributes were much more consistently related to physical activity. This pattern may be explained by less measurement error in objective measures. In contrast, reported physical activity was much more consistently related to neighborhood environment than was

Conclusion

The best use of the present review may be to identify the neighborhood environmental attributes that are most strongly supported, because such findings can inform environment and policy change priorities being pursued for chronic disease prevention. More confidence can be placed in studies in which environmental variables were measured objectively. The most supported correlates for children were traffic speed/volume, access/proximity to recreation facilities, mixed land use, residential

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