WA University. There is convincing evidence that highly walkable locations result in a considerable increase in walking, according to recent research performed by the University of Washington. The daily steps of 5,424 individuals who moved at least once in 1,609 U.S. cities were compared by the authors. Average daily steps increased or dropped by roughly 1,100 during all relocations when the Walk Score changed by more than 48 points.iStock
Walking is incredibly beneficial for those who can do it, and in general, more is better, according to research after study. Even 4,000 steps a day reduces the chance of all-cause mortality, according to a 2023 study. The US average is between 4,000 and 5,000. Risk dropped by 15% for every 1,000 additional steps taken each day.
Since 2007, Walk Scores have been used to measure how quickly people can normally walk to local amenities like schools and grocery stores.On a scale of 0 to 100, cities are given scores. For example, Seattle has a score of 74, which indicates that it is fairly walkable. It should go without saying that individuals tend to walk more in cities and towns with higher rankings. However, it’s surprisingly hard to determine cause and effect: Do people who prefer to walk reside in more pedestrian-friendly cities, or do walkable cities encourage people to walk more?
There is convincing evidence that highly walkable locations result in a considerable increase in walking, according to recent research performed by the University of Washington. The scientists compared the daily steps of 5,424 individuals who moved at least once in 1,609 US locales using data from the Argusstep app. Average daily steps increased or dropped by roughly 1,100 during all relocations when the Walk Score changed by more than 48 points. However, people’s steps remained roughly the same when they traveled between cities that were comparably walkable. These results held true for individuals with varying body mass indices, ages, and genders.
For example, 178 individuals with an average Walk Score of 48 who relocated to New York City (Walk Score 89) from other places were monitored in the study. After relocating to New York, this group’s average daily step count increased from 5,600 to 7,000, an increase of 1,400. The opposite was true for people who moved from New York to less walkable cities: on average, they took 1,400 fewer steps.
The findings were published by the authors in Nature on August 13.
According to lead author Tim Althoff, an associate professor at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington, “some of our earlier works suggested that our physical, built environment makes a big difference in how much we move, but we couldn’t produce particularly strong evidence showing that was the case.” We were able to provide this strong, convincing evidence that our built environments do, in fact, have a direct impact on how much we walk because of the massive data set we worked with for this new study.
This chart illustrates how the steps vary from Seattle to San Francisco, Dallas to Chicago, and other locations with varying Walk Scores.Nature/Althoff et al.
The team selected a subset of 2.1 million users of the Argus app between 2013 and 2016 who had relocated and remained in their new area for a minimum of three months using an anonymized data set. They adjusted for seasonal variations and demographic shifts. Additionally, they eliminated days that involved movements and days with fewer than 500 steps or more than 50,000.
The moderate intensity level (100 to 130 steps per minute) showed the biggest change in walking, according to the study. Moves that raised Walk Scores by more than 49 points were linked to twice as many respondents engaging in the suggested minimum of 150 minutes of aerobic activity per week.
Althoff emphasized that no data collection is fully representative of the entire U.S. population, even if the study offers the greatest evidence to yet. For example, all of the study participants had downloaded a step-counting app, which may have an impact on the findings.
According to Althoff, our research demonstrates that walking frequency is not solely a matter of motivation. The built environment is undoubtedly one of the many factors that influence daily steps. It is worthwhile to invest in shared public infrastructure because it has the potential to enable nearly everyone to engage in healthful activities like walking.
Other co-authors on this research include Jennifer L. Hicks, Scott L. Delp, Abby C. King, and Jure Leskove from Stanford University, as well as Boris Ivanovic from NVIDIA Research.
The Gates Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health provided some funding for this study.
Althoff can be reached [email protected] for additional information.
