Oral

The physical environment can positively contribute to a community's health through universal design, sidewalks, street networks, and land use patterns. A healthy community offers protections from potential dangers and promotes opportunities for community engagement and physical activity. There are five presentations in this session, including: a report of the extent to which elements of the neighborhood environment moderate the association between poor lower-body function and reported difficulty in walking 2-3 city blocks among older adults; a study assessed the inter-rater reliability between coders who rated audio narratives and photographs recorded by 28 older adults in San Mateo County, California; a study to predict differences in adiposity associated with the types of neighborhood features located in Black, White and Latino urban neighborhoods; a research uses behavioral, environmental, and cognitive data from 976 older adults in the Baltimore Memory Study to examine the association of BE and self-regulation resources with health behavior among older adults; and a study examined how SES is associated with health outcomes via the mediating effects of neighborhood safety concerns and physical activity.

Session Objectives: Session Objectives: 1. Identify neighborhood elements that moderate walking difficulty among adults aged 65 and over with poor lower-body function. 2. Describe how older adults used the Stanford Healthy Neighborhood Discovery Tool to collect audio recording and photographic built environment data and how reliably minimally trained coders could categorize this data. 3. Describe how neighborhood characteristics influence adiposity for older adults. 4. Explain how concerns regarding safety and physical activity mediate the influence of socioeconomic status on health outcomes.

CE Credits: Medical (CME), Health Education (CHES), Nursing (CNE), Public Health (CPH) , Masters Certified Health Education Specialist (MCHES)