Neighborhood environment associations with children's active transportation and location-specific physical activity in small town and rural Midwestern settings

Abstract

Purpose This study examined associations of neighborhood and community environment features with detailed device-based measures of children's physical activity in rural and small town settings. Methods Participants were 44 elementary-aged children (mean age 8.8 ± 0.8 years; 61.4% female) from rural and small town (<20K residents) Midwest communities. Accelerometers and GPS trackers measured types/locations of activity (walking, biking, and vehicle trips; home, neighborhood, and school), overall MVPA, and sedentary time. All neighborhood and community environment measures were collected at the participant level. Objective measures included walkability, distance to school, and living within town (yes/no). Perceived measures captured perceptions of indoor/outdoor play areas and areas near home, schools, and churches. Mixed effects models assessed associations of each environmental factor with each activity type/location and with overall MVPA and sedentary time. Results Walking time, school-MVPA, and other-MVPA were positively associated with children's overall-MVPA, while home-MVPA was negatively associated with sedentary time. Environmental features were positively associated with overall-MVPA (walkability, areas around home), biking (outdoor areas, areas around home), and home-MVPA (walkability, living within town, areas around home), and negatively associated with sedentary time (living within town, areas around home) and vehicle time (walkability, distance to school, living within town, perceived environment). No features were related to walking, neighborhood-MVPA, school-MVPA, or other-MVPA. Conclusion Neighborhood walkability and areas around the home appear important to rural children's physical activity, though the findings for home MVPA suggest these features may relate to different sources of physical activity in rural populations than what has been shown in urban populations.