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Correlates of walking and cycling for transport and recreation: factor structure, reliability and behavioural associations of the perceptions of the environment in the neighbourhood scale (PENS)

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posted on 2015-11-03, 13:36 authored by Emma Adams, Anna Goodman, Shannon Sahlqvist, Fiona C. Bull, David Ogilvie
Background: Emerging evidence suggests that walking and cycling for different purposes such as transport or recreation may be associated with different attributes of the physical environment. Few studies to date have examined these behaviour-specific associations, particularly in the UK. This paper reports on the development, factor structure and test-retest reliability of a new scale assessing perceptions of the environment in the neighbourhood (PENS) and the associations between perceptions of the environment and walking and cycling for transport and recreation. Methods: A new 13-item scale was developed for assessing adults’ perceptions of the environment in the neighbourhood (PENS). Three sets of analyses were conducted using data from two sources. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to identify a set of summary environmental variables using data from the iConnect baseline survey (n = 3494); test-retest reliability of the individual and summary environmental items was established using data collected in a separate reliability study (n = 166); and multivariable logistic regression was used to determine the associations of the environmental variables with walking for transport, walking for recreation, cycling for transport and cycling for recreation, using iConnect baseline survey data (n = 2937). Results: Four summary environmental variables (traffic safety, supportive infrastructure, availability of local amenities and social order), one individual environmental item (street connectivity) and a variable encapsulating general environment quality were identified for use in further analyses. Intraclass correlations of these environmental variables ranged from 0.44 to 0.77 and were comparable to those seen in other similar scales. After adjustment for demographic and other environmental factors, walking for transport was associated with supportive infrastructure, availability of local amenities and general environment quality; walking for recreation was associated with supportive infrastructure; and cycling for transport was associated only with street connectivity. There was limited evidence of any associations between environmental attributes and cycling for recreation. Conclusion: PENS is acceptable as a short instrument for assessing perceptions of the urban environment. Previous findings that different attributes of the environment may be associated with different behaviours are confirmed. Policy action to create supportive environments may require a combination of environmental improvements to promote walking and cycling for different purposes.

Funding

This paper was written on behalf of the iConnect consortium. The iConnect consortium is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (grant reference EP/G00059X/1). AG contributed to this work while supported by a National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) postdoctoral fellowship. DO is supported by the Medical Research Council [Unit Programme number U106179474] and the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR), a UKCRC Public Health Research Centre of Excellence, in respect of which funding from the British Heart Foundation, Economic and Social Research Council, Medical Research Council, National Institute for Health Research and the Wellcome Trust, under the auspices of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, is gratefully acknowledged.

History

School

  • Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences

Published in

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL NUTRITION AND PHYSICAL ACTIVITY

Volume

10

Pages

? - ? (15)

Citation

ADAMS, E.J. ... et al, 2013. Correlates of walking and cycling for transport and recreation: factor structure, reliability and behavioural associations of the perceptions of the environment in the neighbourhood scale (PENS). International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 10:87, doi: 10.1186/1479-5868-10-87

Publisher

BioMed Central Ltd

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Publication date

2013

Notes

© 2013 Adams et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

ISSN

1479-5868

Language

  • en