Background: Physical Activity (PA) plays an important role for health. Walking is the easiest way to incorporate activity into everyday life. However, few adults achieve the recommended levels of activity. This study examined the association of the objectively measured neighbourhood physical environment with walking among the adults in Colombo, Sri Lanka through a cross sectional design.
Methods : Primary data collection was carried out to assess the minutes walked, socio-demographic characteristics and geo location of residence. Secondary data was obtained to assess neighbourhood environment from existing spatially referenced data. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) was used to calculate density measures (residential density, land use, connectivity and access) and distance measures.
Results: A sample consisted of 284 adults aged 29-59 years (mean age 40.6 (SD-10.9) years, Female: 56%). Adults reported a mean of 175.8 (SD214.0) minutes/week of total walking out of which, 158.4 (SD-196.6) minutes/week of walking was for transportation and 17.5 (SD-70.1) minutes/week of walking was for leisure. All residential density measures, building foot print area, length of major roads, number of intersections, number of bus stops, and distance to nearest major roads showed significant moderate degree of correlations with total walking, (p < 0.001). These results were similar with walking for transportation.
Conclusion: There is indication that neighbourhood features could be associated with walking in Sri Lankan adults. Understanding the relationship between objectively measured neighbourhood physical environment attributes for walking gives insight for designing effective interventions to promote walking. Therefore, future studies in Sri Lanka, should consider a more comprehensive framework including objective and perceived measures of the built environment to evaluate the neighbourhood physical environment to promote walking.