Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada.
Health Place. 2019 Jan;55:145-154. doi: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2018.12.005. Epub 2018 Dec 21.
Walkability indices are used to characterize the relationship between health and place. Indices make assumptions that affect analysis of the built environment and resulting walkability scores. This study compares three walkability indices created by health researchers focusing on the methods, variables, and walkability scores resulting from differences in definitions and methods. This paper deconstructs the walkability algorithms utilized by each index and rebuilds them in Vancouver, Canada. We find that neighbourhoods in the northern core closer to the downtown area have similar walkability scores across all three indices, while the outer peripheral neighbourhoods with moderate to low walkability have more variation in walkability scores across indices. Most walkability variables - residential density, street connectivity, and land-use - lack a rationale for inclusion, often assumed by researchers. Walkability indices used in health research prove to be incongruent with each other and misrepresentative of actual human behavior. We explore the impact of variable selection and methodologies on indices in the interest of more rigorous health research.
步行能力指数用于描述健康与环境之间的关系。这些指数做出了一些假设，这些假设会影响对建筑环境的分析和得出的步行能力得分。本研究比较了三位健康研究人员创建的三种步行能力指数，这些指数在定义和方法上的差异导致了方法、变量和步行能力得分的不同。本文解构了每个指数所使用的步行能力算法，并在加拿大温哥华重新构建了这些算法。我们发现，在所有三个指数中，靠近市中心的北部核心区的社区具有相似的步行能力得分，而具有中等至低步行能力的外围社区的步行能力得分在指数之间存在更多差异。大多数步行能力变量（居住密度、街道连通性和土地利用）缺乏纳入的理由，这通常是研究人员假设的。健康研究中使用的步行能力指数彼此不一致，不能代表实际的人类行为。我们探讨了变量选择和方法对指数的影响，以促进更严格的健康研究。
