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Background: Walk Score® is a nationally and publicly available metric of neighborhood walkability based on proximity to amenities (e.g., retail, food, schools). However, few studies have examined the relationship of Walk Score to walking behavior. Purpose: To examine the relationship of Walk Score to walking behavior in a sample of recent Cuban immigrants, who overwhelmingly report little choice in their selection of neighborhood built environments when they arrive in the U.S. Methods: Participants were 391 recent healthy Cuban immigrants (mean age=37.1 years) recruited within 90 days of arrival in the U.S., and assessed within 4 months of arrival (mean=41.0 days in the U.S.), who resided throughout Miami-Dade County FL. Data on participants’ addresses, walking, and sociodemographics were collected prospectively from 2008 to 2010. Analyses conducted in 2011 examined the relationship of Walk Score for each participant’s residential address in the U.S. to purposive walking, controlling for age, gender, education, BMI, days in the U.S., and habitual physical activity level in Cuba. Results: For each 10-point increase in Walk Score, adjusting for covariates, there was a significant 19% increase in the likelihood of purposive walking, a 26% increase in the likelihood of meeting physical activity recommendations by walking, and 27% more minutes walked in the previous week. Conclusions: Results suggest that Walk Score is associated with walking in a sample of recent immigrants who initially had little choice in where they lived in the U.S. These results support existing guidelines indicating that mixed land use (such as parks and restaurants near homes) should be included when designing walkable communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Planners have relied on the urban development boundary (UDB)/urban growth boundary (UGB) and central business district (CBD) to encourage contiguous urban development and conserve infrastructure. However, no studies have specifically examined the relationship between proximity to the UDB/UGB and CBD and walking behavior., Purpose: To examine the relationship between UDB and CBD distance and walking in a sample of recent Cuban immigrants, who report little choice in where they live after arrival to the U.S., Methods: Data were collected in 2008-2010 from 391 healthy, recent Cuban immigrants recruited and assessed within 90 days of arrival to the U.S. who resided throughout Miami-Dade County FL. Analyses in 2012-2013 examined the relationship between UDB and CBD distances for each participant's residential address and purposive walking, controlling for key sociodemographics. Follow-up analyses examined whether Walk Score(®), a built-environment walkability metric based on distance to amenities such as stores and parks, mediated the relationship between purposive walking and each of UDB and CBD distance., Results: Each one-mile increase in distance from the UDB corresponded to an 11% increase in the number of minutes of purposive walking, whereas each one-mile increase from the CBD corresponded to a 5% decrease in the amount of purposive walking. Moreover, Walk Score mediated the relationship between walking and each of UDB and CBD distance., Conclusions: Given the lack of walking and walkable destinations observed in proximity to the UDB/UGB boundary, a sprawl repair approach could be implemented, which strategically introduces mixed-use zoning to encourage walking throughout the boundary's zone., (Copyright © 2014 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)