Kato Haruka
Department of Living Environment Design, Graduate School of Human Life and Ecology, Osaka Metropolitan University, Osaka, 558-8585, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2024 Dec 28;14(1):31047. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-82232-x.
Urban design focused on improving walkability has received attention as a method of increasing physical activity among the population. However, only a few studies have examined the effect of walking time of opening multifunctional facilities as an architecture-scale intervention. This study aimed to clarify the effect of opening a multifunctional facility on residents' daily walking time. In addition, this study analyzed the gender and age subgroups. The natural experiment was conducted using the case of the Ibaraki City Cultural and Childcare Complex "ONIKURU," a public multifunctional facility. This study used GPS-trajectory data based on GPS tracking techniques, which is anonymized location data for smartphone users. The causal relationship was analyzed using propensity score matching and difference-in-differences analysis. The results showed that the opening of ONIKURU significantly increased the average walking time of visitors to 3.165 [- 1.697, 8.027] min/day compared with that of non-visitors. Specifically, visitors' average daily walking time improved to a level comparable to that of non-visitors after the opening of ONIKURU. In addition, opening ONIKURU significantly increased female young adults' average walking time to 3.385 [- 4.906, 11.676] min/day. Therefore, this study provides theoretical contributions to a health-promoting built environment significantly affecting walking at an architecture-scale intervention.
作为一种增加人群身体活动的方法，专注于提高步行便利性的城市设计受到了关注。然而，只有少数研究考察了开放多功能设施的步行时间作为一种建筑尺度干预措施的效果。本研究旨在阐明开放多功能设施对居民日常步行时间的影响。此外，本研究还分析了性别和年龄亚组。以公共多功能设施茨城县文化与儿童保育综合体“ONIKURU”为例进行了自然实验。本研究使用了基于GPS跟踪技术的GPS轨迹数据，这是智能手机用户的匿名位置数据。使用倾向得分匹配和差分分析来分析因果关系。结果表明，与非访客相比，ONIKURU的开放显著增加了访客的平均步行时间，达到3.165[-1.697,8.027]分钟/天。具体而言，ONIKURU开放后，访客的平均每日步行时间提高到与非访客相当的水平。此外，开放ONIKURU显著增加了年轻女性的平均步行时间，达到3.385[-4.906,11.676]分钟/天。因此，本研究为在建筑尺度干预中显著影响步行的促进健康的建筑环境提供了理论贡献。
