Indices of walkability to identify environmental barriers to walking in urban and rural communities

This study developed “indices of walkability” to quantify conditions of sidewalks, streets, and surrounding environments to objectively identify environmental barriers to walking in various communities. Methods: Downtown Albany and entire Columbia and Greene Counties, New York were stratified by Census Block Groups (CBGs). All non-rural CBGs and a sample of rural CBGs were retained, and one block-length street was randomly selected from each CBG. Sampling weights were used to adjust for selection probabilities. Thirty-four walkability indicators were collected per street using standardized tools. Each indicator was assigned with 0 to 4 points, where 4 indicating presence of the most desirable attributes. The indicators were grouped to create four indices of walkability; basic features, maintenance, personal safety, and traffic safety. Regression models were developed to investigate relationships between neighborhood socio-demographic characteristics and walkability. Results: Overall, Downtown Albany had significantly higher (p<0.01) scores in basic features, traffic safety, and total walkability indices than rural Columbia/Greene. The differences were largely due to a significantly higher rate of having continuous sidewalks in Albany (95% of sample streets) than in the rural counties (19%). In Albany, percentage of minority population was negatively associated with maintenance and personal safety. In Columbia/Greene, features associated with urbanity were generally positively associated with walkability. Conclusions: Rural communities face more environmental barriers to walking because of the lack of sidewalks and traffic safety issues. Urban minority neighborhoods are likely to have personal safety and sidewalk maintenance concerns. These findings were congruent with perceived environmental barriers from previous studies.