Individual, social, and physical environmental factors related to changes in walking and cycling for transport among older adults: A longitudinal study
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Abstract
To date, no longitudinal studies examined the change in walking and cycling for transport
as distinct outcomes over time and investigated the predictors of those changes. Therefore,
this present study examined the change in odds of engagement in walking and cycling
for transport as distinct outcomes among Belgian older adults over a three-year follow-up
period, and examined factors (i.e. socio-demographics, psychosocial, perceived social
and physical environmental characteristics) related to these changes in engaging in
walking and cycling for transport. Against our expectations, we found significantly
higher odds of engaging in cycling for transport among older adults at follow-up compared
to baseline and no significant differences in the odds of engaging in walking for
transport. Interventions should assist older adults to increase their self-efficacy
towards PA, their perceived benefits of PA, and their perception of land use mix diversity
in their neighborhood in order to increase the engagement in walking/cycling for transport
over time, or help to decrease their perceived barriers towards PA or their perception
to have a lot of physical barriers to walk/cycle in their neighborhood. Future longitudinal
studies with larger samples are warranted investigating interaction effects between
different predictors at various levels to find out which factors can be further integrated
into active transport interventions in older adults.