Institute for Health & Ageing, Australian Catholic University, Level 6, 215 Spring Street, VIC 3000, Melbourne, Australia; School of Public Health and Social Work and Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, Queensland University of Technology, Park Road, Kelvin Grove, QLD 4059, Brisbane, Australia.
School of Civil Engineering and Built Environment, Science and Engineering Faculty, Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety, Faculty of Health, Queensland University of Technology, Gardens Point, 2 George St, QLD 4000 Brisbane, Australia.
Prev Med Rep. 2016 May 16;4:75-80. doi: 10.1016/j.pmedr.2016.05.001. eCollection 2016 Dec.
Walking as regular physical activity (PA) is central to healthy aging, and environments influence walking. Multilevel neighborhood-based studies that only report average (fixed-effect) walking differences for gender and age implicitly assume that neighborhood environments influence the walking behavior of men and women, and younger and older persons, similarly. This study tests this assumption by examining whether gender and age differences in walking for transport (WfT) and walking for recreation (WfR) are similar or different across neighborhoods.
This paper used data from the HABITAT multilevel study, with 7,866 participants aged 42-68 years in 2009 living in 200 neighborhoods in Brisbane, Australia. Respondents reported minutes spent WfT and WfR in the previous week, categorized as: none (0 mins), low (1-59mins), moderate (60-149mins) and high (≥ 150 mins). Multilevel multinomial logistic models were used to estimate average differences in walking by gender and age, followed by random coefficients to examine neighborhood variation in these individual-level relationships.
On average, women were more likely to engage in WfR at moderate and high levels (no gender differences found in WfT); and older persons were less likely to do WfT and more likely to do high levels of WfR. These average (Brisbane-wide) relationships varied significantly across neighborhoods.
Relationships between gender and walking, and age and walking, are not the same in all neighborhoods, (i.e. the Brisbane average conceals important information) suggesting that neighborhood-level factors differentially influence the walking behaviors of men and women and younger and older persons. Identifying these factors should be a priority for future research.
作为常规身体活动（PA）的步行对于健康老龄化至关重要，而环境会影响步行。基于多层次邻里的研究仅报告了性别和年龄的平均（固定效应）步行差异，这隐含地假设邻里环境对男性和女性以及年轻和年长人群的步行行为有相似的影响。本研究通过检验性别和年龄在交通相关步行（WfT）和娱乐相关步行（WfR）方面的差异在邻里之间是否相似或不同，来检验这一假设。
本研究使用了 HABITAT 多层次研究的数据，该研究于 2009 年纳入了 200 个澳大利亚布里斯班社区的 7866 名年龄在 42-68 岁的参与者。受访者报告了上周用于 WfT 和 WfR 的分钟数，分为：无（0 分钟）、低（1-59 分钟）、中（60-149 分钟）和高（≥150 分钟）。使用多水平多项逻辑模型估计了性别和年龄对步行的平均差异，然后使用随机系数检验了这些个体水平关系在邻里间的差异。
平均而言，女性更有可能进行中高强度的 WfR（WfT 中不存在性别差异）；而年龄较大的人更不可能进行 WfT，更有可能进行高强度的 WfR。这些平均（布里斯班范围内）关系在邻里间存在显著差异。
性别与步行以及年龄与步行之间的关系在所有邻里间并不相同（即布里斯班的平均值掩盖了重要信息），这表明邻里层面的因素对男性和女性以及年轻和年长人群的步行行为有不同的影响。确定这些因素应是未来研究的优先事项。
