Using objective and subjective measures of neighborhood greenness and accessible destinations for understanding walking trips and BMI in Seattle, Washington

Purpose. Examine the influence of destinations within walking distance of a residence and vegetation on walking trips and. body mass index (BMI). Design. Cross-section at analysis of data from residences with varying accessibility and greenness. Setting. Seattle, Washington. Subjects. Stratified random sample of residents, stratified by accessibility and greenness. Response rate: 17.5 %, 529 respondents. Measures. Accessibility and greenness were measured. objectively 1 1 Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Network Analysis and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), respectively. Self-reported, destinations, natural features, walking trips, BMI, and importance of destinations were measured through a postal survey. Results. Objective accessibility were related to walking trips per month (r(2) = .110, p < 0001), as was subjective greenness (r(2) =.051, p <. 0001), although objective measures of actual greenness were not. In areas with high accessibility, BMI was lower in areas that had high NDVI, or more greenness (r(2) =.129428, model p <. 0001; t-test of interaction p = .0257). Low NDVI areas were associated with overestimation of the number of destinations within walking distance (F-1,F- (499) = 11.009, p = .001) Conclusions. Objective and subjective measurements of accessibility and greenness led to an understanding of variation, among walking hips and BMI in different neighborhoods.