Adults' Daily Walking for Travel and Leisure: Interaction Between Attitude Toward Walking and the Neighborhood Environment

Purpose: Studies on how the interaction of psychological and environmental characteristics influences walking are limited, and the results are inconsistent. Our aim is to examine how the attitude toward walking and neighborhood environments interacts to influence walking. Design: Cross-sectional phone and mail survey. Setting: Participants randomly sampled from 6 study sites including Los Angeles, Chicago, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Manhattan, and Bronx Counties in New York City, and Forsyth and Davidson Counties in North Carolina. Participants: The final sample consisted of 2621 persons from 2011 to 2012. Measures: Total minutes of walking for travel or leisure, attitude toward walking, and perceptions of the neighborhood environments were self-reported. Street Smart (SS) Walk Score (a measure of walkability derived from a variety of geographic data) was obtained for each residential location. Analysis: Linear regression models adjusting for age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, and income. Results: Attitude toward walking was positively associated with walking for both purposes. Walking for travel was significantly associated with SS Walk Score, whereas walking for leisure was not. The SS Walk Score and selected perceived environment characteristics were associated with walking in people with a very positive attitude toward walking but were not associated with walking in people with a less positive attitude. Conclusion: Attitudes toward walking and neighborhood environments interact to affect walking behavior.