Relationship between Objective Physical Environmental Factors and Walking Behaviors in New Orleans

In New Orleans, only 39% of adults meet physical activity recommendations. Walking is the most simple, yet effective form of physical activity. However, only few studies have explored associations of physical environmental factors with different walking behaviors. The purpose of this study was to explore physical environmental influences, particularly crime and neighborhood food store density on walking behaviors. The relationship of objectively-measured crime rates and density of food stores with both exercise-related walking and utility-related walking within 3137 subjects who participated in a local telephone survey in New Orleans which included information on exercise/utility walking and residence of census tract was examined. Two database of crime records provided information on the locations of reported crimes and a health department permit database provided information on the locations of retail food stores; these were geocoded to create census tract-level objective measures of crime rates and food store density. Other variables included in our analyses at the census tract level were tract socioeconomic status. Additional variables at the individual level were demographics, socioeconomic status, attitudes toward exercise and walking, perceived neighborhood safety, and perceived neighborhood barriers to walking. Hierarchical modeling is used to study the relationships between tract-level crime and food store density and both exercise-related walking and utility-related walking, while controlling for individual covariates, such as gender, race, age and income. Food store density, violent crime and property-related crime complaints were found to have strong associations with utility-related walking, but not with exercise-related walking.