Focusing your walking intervention’s message

For mature audiences only

Abstract

Public policy makers seek to launch initiatives and preventive measures that reduce spiraling healthcare costs. One way they can do this is by encouraging their constituencies to engage in physical activity, such as walking. Although the health benefits of walking have been well documented, the factors that contribute to such behavior are not well understood. We analyzed the effect of factors that the literature has identified on walking behavior for “mature” adults, aged 40 to 65, and find that the “physical” infrastructure of a community, such as the presence of sidewalks, crosswalks, and signals for pedestrians, affects walking significantly. Our study suggests that policy makers would be well-advised to channel their efforts in building and improving the physical infrastructure that enable walking in their communities and to communicate the presence of these to their constituencies without explicitly recommending walking to them.