Bafna Sonit, Chambers Earle
College of Architecture, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30318 USA.
Department of Family and Social Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA.
AZ. 2014 Dec;11(2):31-46.
We describe a study to test whether the arrangement of rooms in an apartment has any systematic association with the levels of activity of its inhabitants. This study was conducted in a sample of Latino adults living in the Bronx, New York. A convenience sample of 19 apartments was selected within the Bronx, NY and one adult volunteer was selected from each household based on who was present at the time of a home visit conducted to collect information on extent of activities. Floor plans for the apartments were obtained from the city authorities. The paper begins by reasoning about the mechanism by which the organization of space can influence levels of activity in the house, and goes on distinguish, first, habitual from deliberate and planned activity, and second, sedentary from more vigorous activity. It is argued that habitual activity would be more susceptible to the influence of spatial organization, and that such habitual activity is likely to be sedentary activity around the house rather than moderate or intense activity. Furthermore, different types of sedentary activity should respond differentially to spatial organization. Specifically, sedentary activities that are susceptible to social life in the house, or require social participation like watching TV or playing cards, should show a positive association with how closely the rooms are knit together, while sedentary activities such as reading, working on computers, and playing video games, that are better conducted in solitary situations, should not. Bivariate analyses showed that interconnectedness (a modified version of integration) was significantly associated with hours spent in socially susceptible sedentary activities but not with hours spent in sedentary activities that occur in solitary conditions, like using the computer or reading. In multivariate analyses, conducted to control for the effects of age and educational level, interconnectedness was still significantly associated with sedentary activity hours. A separate test showed that the positive association with interconnectedness also held for sitting/reclining Hours reported over the day; unlike sedentary activity hours, sitting/reclining hours included activity outside the home as well, so the result raises issues of additional interest. The paper concludes by presenting methodological implications, focusing particularly on how the study could be further developed to model the specific mechanisms by which spatial organization exerts its influence on behavior.
我们描述了一项研究，以测试公寓房间的布局是否与居住者的活动水平存在任何系统性关联。该研究在纽约布朗克斯区居住的拉丁裔成年人样本中进行。在纽约布朗克斯区内选取了19套公寓作为便利样本，并在每次家访收集活动范围信息时，从每户家庭中挑选一名成年志愿者。公寓的楼层平面图由城市当局提供。本文首先探讨空间组织影响房屋内活动水平的机制，接着区分了习惯性活动与刻意和有计划的活动，以及久坐活动与更剧烈的活动。有人认为，习惯性活动更容易受到空间组织的影响，而且这种习惯性活动很可能是房屋周围的久坐活动，而非适度或剧烈活动。此外，不同类型的久坐活动对空间组织的反应应该有所不同。具体而言，容易受到家庭社交生活影响或需要社交参与的久坐活动，如看电视或打牌，应该与房间之间的紧密程度呈正相关，而诸如阅读、使用电脑工作和玩电子游戏等在独处情况下进行得更好的久坐活动则不然。双变量分析表明，相互连通性（整合的一种改进形式）与在社交敏感的久坐活动中花费的时间显著相关，但与在独处条件下进行的久坐活动（如使用电脑或阅读）所花费的时间无关。在进行多变量分析以控制年龄和教育水平的影响时，相互连通性仍然与久坐活动时间显著相关。一项单独的测试表明，与相互连通性的正相关关系在一天中报告的坐/躺时间方面也成立；与久坐活动时间不同，坐/躺时间还包括在家外的活动，因此该结果引发了一些额外有趣的问题。本文最后提出了方法学上的启示，特别关注该研究如何能够进一步发展，以模拟空间组织对行为施加影响的具体机制。
