Journal article

Associations Between the Neighborhood Environment and Moderate-to-Vigorous Walking in New Zealand Children: Findings from the URBAN Study

LJ McGrath, EA Hinckson, WG Hopkins, S Mavoa, K Witten, G Schofield

Sports Medicine | ADIS INT LTD | Published : 2016

Abstract

Background: Urban design may affect children’s habitual physical activity by influencing active commuting and neighborhood play. Purpose: Our objective was to examine associations between neighborhood built-environment features near children’s homes and objectively measured physical activity. Methods: We used geographical information system (GIS) protocols to select 2016 households from 48 low- and high-walkability neighborhoods within four New Zealand cities. Children (n = 227; mean age ± standard deviation [SD] 9.3 ± 2.1 years) from the selected households wore accelerometers that recorded physical activity in the period 2008–2010. We used multilevel linear models to examine the associatio..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Awarded by Health Research Council of New Zealand


Funding Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the Health Research Council (HRC) of New Zealand (Grant Numbers: 07/356 and 08/048). Leslie J Mc Grath received a 3-year PhD scholarship of $NZ25,000 p.a., funded by the HRC of New Zealand (Grant Number: 07/356). The funding bodies were not involved in the design, conduct, data collection, management, or publication of the study. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the participants who completed the study, research assistants who collected the data, and the territorial authorities for providing the GIS datasets.