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Original Articles

Are daily fluctuations in perceived environment associated with walking?

, , , , &
Pages 1009-1020
Received 28 Jul 2010
Accepted 22 Nov 2011
Published online: 03 Jan 2012
 

The physical environment is thought to influence walking; however, daily variations in perceived environment have received little attention. The current study sought to examine if key within-person factors (i.e., implementation intentions, social support, affect and self-efficacy) would be associated with walking and if perceived access to supportive environments (e.g., access to nice walking paths) and perceived environmental barriers (e.g., bad weather and safety issues) were uniquely associated with walking after controlling for other constructs. Participants (N = 14, 50.0% men, 78.6% White, M age = 59.4 ± 6.4) were in the intervention arm of an 8-week controlled trial promoting walking via personal digital assistants. Participants completed electronic surveys twice a day (total entries = 804) in which they reported brisk walking levels and psychosocial and environmental factors. Multilevel modelling was used to examine within-person variations in constructs as determinants of walking. Results suggested that daily variations in implementation intentions, social support and positive affect were positively associated with walking. Further, perceived access to supportive environments, though not perceived environmental barriers, was positively associated with walking after controlling for other constructs (p < 0.05). Future research should explore intervention components that target context-specific information about perceived access to supportive environments as part of a broader perspective on intervention development.

Acknowledgements

Drs. Hekler and Buman were supported by Public Health Service Training Grant 5 T32 HL 007034 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute while at Stanford University. The funding agency was not involved in the design or conduct of the research. This study was supported by a grant from Stanford University's Office of Technology Licensing. The majority of the work by Drs. Hekler and Buman was conducted while at Stanford, although both Drs. Hekler and Buman are currently faculty members at Arizona State University. The views expressed in this article represent those of the authors and not the National Cancer Institute. No financial disclosures were reported by the authors of this article.

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