Self-Reported Reasons Preventing US Adults From Walking to Places Within 10 Minutes of Home

TL;DR

This study explores why US adults don't walk to nearby places, finding that environmental, access, and personal reasons vary across demographics and geography.

Contribution

The study identifies specific reasons preventing walking among US adults and shows how these reasons differ by sociodemographic and geographic factors.

Findings

79.0% of respondents reported at least one reason for not walking to nearby places.

Hot and humid conditions, lack of nearby places to walk, preference for driving, and inconvenience were the most common reasons.

Reasons varied significantly by sex, race, region, and urban vs. non-urban residence.

Abstract

Increasing walking for transportation is a strategy to integrate physical activity into daily life. We examined reported environmental, access, and individual reasons for not walking to places near home among US adults, by sociodemographic characteristics and geographic location.

We used data from the 2022 SummerStyles survey on 3,967 US adults aged 18 years or older. We calculated prevalence of reporting 11 selected reasons for not walking to places within 10 minutes of home, overall and by sex, race or ethnicity, age, education, income, US census region, and metropolitan residence (an area with at least 1 urban area of ≥50,000 inhabitants) versus nonmetropolitan residence. We used Bonferroni-corrected pairwise comparisons and orthogonal polynomial contrasts (ordered groups) to compare prevalence by subgroup.

Overall, 79.0% of respondents identified at least 1 reason for not walking to places near home (within 10 minutes). Commonly reported reasons were hot and humid conditions (36.0%), no places to walk within 10 minutes (24.9%), a preference for driving (22.1%), and inconvenience (21.5%). The reasons varied significantly across sociodemographic and geographic subgroups. The prevalence of reporting none of the listed reasons was higher among males than females, higher among non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic Asian adults than non-Hispanic White adults, and higher among adults from the Northeast versus the South.

Eight of 10 US adults reported at least 1 environmental, access, or individual reason for not walking to places near home. Designing communities to make walking for transportation more accessible, convenient, and desirable may help address the leading reasons reported, which may support adults in adding more physical activity to their daily lives.

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