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Judgments concerning features of environments do not always correspond accurately with objective measures of those same features. Moreover, perceived and objectively assessed environmental attributes, including proximity of destinations, may influence walking behavior in different ways. This study compares perceived and objectively assessed distance to several different destinations and examines whether correspondence between objective and perceived distance is influenced by age, gender, neighborhood walkability, and walking behavior. Distances to most destinations close to home are overestimated, whereas distances to those farther away are underestimated. Perceived and objective distances to certain types of destinations are differentially associated with walking behavior. Perceived environmental attributes do not consistently reflect objectively assessed attributes, and both appear to have differential effects on physical activity behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Older adults requiring home care service have a high risk of depression. Instruments for detecting depression among older adults, however, are often too long and detailed for easy administration by nontrained staff in large service-based settings.This study examined the measurement properties (test—retest reliability, concurrent validity, and cross-modality correspondence) of a single-item screener for depressive symptoms among older adults receiving home care services. Reliability was assessed (n = 65) by administering the single-item depression screener to the same participants on two occasions 7 days apart. Validity was assessed (n = 191) by comparing depressed participants from the single-item depression screener versus Geriatric Depression Scale (criterion measure). Responses to the single-item depression screener administered by telephone and face-to-face interview were also compared. Findings suggest that the single-item depression screener has fair levels of reliability, validity, and cross-modality correspondence and could be used among home care recipients as a screening tool, provided that depression status is confirmed via in-depth questionnaires, interviews, or a clinical diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]