Associations of neighborhood walkability with working adults’ physically-active and sedentary time, by week and weekend days

Purpose: To assess whether the relationship of neighborhood walkability with physically active and sedentary time varied by weekday or weekend. Working adults may be less influenced by their home neighborhood environment during the work week when they spend more time away from home.

Methods: Adults were recruited from neighborhoods in the US varying in income and walkability. They wore an Actigraph accelerometer for 7 days. GIS-based walkability was computed around homes. Average daily moderate vigorous physical activity (MVPA) (1952+ cpm) and sedentary behavior minutes (≤100 cpm) were calculated for weekdays and weekend days. Mixed effects linear regressions, adjusting for neighborhood clustering, were performed on data from those (N=1733) reporting working full or part time outside of their home.

Results: There was a significant positive relationship between walkability and sedentary weekday minutes (F 6.91; p=.01). Neighborhood walkability was not related to weekend sedentary minutes. Walkability was related to MVPA during the week (F 33.6, p<.001) and weekend (F 8.2, p=.006).

Conclusions: Having convenient neighborhood walkability may support physical activity during weekdays when there are other competing time demands. The positive relationship between walkability and sedentary behavior may reflect that people living in walkable neighborhood have more sedentary occupations. GPS data would clarify where MVPA and sedentary behaviors occur.