Social inequities in neighborhood health amenities over time in the Wasatch Front Region of Utah: Historical inequities, population selection, or differential investment?

Socially disadvantaged groups generally are more likely to reside in areas with less desirable conditions. We examined longitudinal relationships between neighborhood resident characteristics and amenities from 1990 to 2010 in an urban area of Utah, U.S. Four temporal patterns of social inequities are described using mixed-effects models: historical inequities; differential selection into amenity-rich tracts; differential investment in amenities; and simultaneous twenty-year change. Results indicate historical differences by neighborhood socioeconomic status, with lower status tracts having fewer green/natural amenities and higher air pollution in 1990 but also greater walkability and more food stores. Differences in amenities by neighborhood socioeconomic status widened over time as aggregate socioeconomic status disproportionately increased in tracts with more green/natural amenities, less air pollution, and lower walkability in 1990, consistent with differential selection. Tract percentage non-Hispanic White did not predict historical differences, but tracts that were less walkable and had fewer healthy food stores in 1990 experienced larger subsequent increases in racial/ethnic diversity. Tracts with higher relative to lower percentage non-Hispanic White in 1990 had larger decreases in air pollution but declining green/natural amenities. This study shows how social inequities in neighborhood amenities change over time, providing evidence of historical socioeconomic differences increasing from differential resident selection.

Transit Rider Body Mass Index Before and After Completion of Street Light-Rail Line in Utah.

OBJECTIVES: To determine whether 2012 to 2015 (times 1-3) ridership changes correlated with body mass index (BMI) changes after transit line completion in Salt Lake City, Utah. METHODS: We used Global Positioning System/accelerometry-measured transit ridership measures in 2012 to 2013 (times 1-2) to compare objective and self-reported ridership. Regression models related changes in objectively measured ridership (times 1-2) and self-reported ridership (times 1-2 and times 1-3) to BMI changes, adjusting for control variables. RESULTS: Objective and self-reported ridership measures were consistent. From time 1 to 2 (P = .021) or to 3 (P = .015), BMI increased among self-reported former riders and decreased among new riders (P = .09 for both times 1-2 and times 1-3), although the latter was nonsignificant. Time 3 attrition adjustment had no effect on results. Adjusting for baseline BMI, the nonsignificant effect for new riders remained nonsignificant, indicating no BMI change; the BMI increase after discontinuing transit remained significant. CONCLUSIONS: Observed BMI increases subsequent to stopping transit ridership persisted for more than 2 years (postintervention). These results suggest that transit ridership protects against BMI gains and support the need to provide convenient transit for public health.

Evaluating the attractiveness of a new light rail extension: Testing simple change and displacement change hypotheses.

Many communities in the United States have been adding new light rail to bus-predominant public transit systems. However, there is disagreement as to whether opening light rail lines attracts new ridership or merely draws ridership from existing transit users. We study a new light rail line in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, which is part of a complete street redevelopment. We utilize a pre-test post-test control group quasi-experimental design to test two different measures of ridership change. The first measure is calculated from stops along the light rail route; the second assumes that nearby bus stops might be displaced by the rail and calculates ridership change with those stops included as baseline. Both the simple measure (transit use changes on the complete street light rail corridor) and the "displacement" measure (transit use changes in the one-quarter mile catchment areas around new light rail stops) showed significant (p < .01) and substantial (677%) increases in transit passengers compared to pre-light rail bus users. In particular, the displacement analysis discredits a common challenge that when a new light rail line opens, most passengers are simply former bus riders whose routes were canceled in favor of light rail. The study suggests that light rail services can attract additional ridership to public transit systems. In addition, although pre-post control-group designs require time and effort, this project underscores the benefits of such quasi-experimental designs in terms of the strength of the inferences that can be drawn about the impacts of new transit infrastructure and services.

Transit Use, Physical Activity, and Body Mass Index Changes: Objective Measures Associated With Complete Street Light-Rail Construction.

OBJECTIVES: We assessed effects on physical activity (PA) and weight among participants in a complete street intervention that extended a light-rail line in Salt Lake City, Utah. METHODS: Participants in the Moving Across Places Study resided within 2 kilometers of the new line. They wore accelerometers and global positioning system (GPS) loggers for 1 week before and after rail construction. Regression analyses compared change scores of participants who never rode transit with continuing, former, and new riders, after adjustment for control variables (total n = 537). RESULTS: New riders had significantly more accelerometer-measured counts per minute than never-riders (P < .01), and former riders had significantly fewer (P < .01). New riders lost (P < .05) and former riders gained (P < .01) weight. Former riders lost 6.4 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) per 10 hours of accelerometer wear (P < .01) and gained 16.4 minutes of sedentary time (P < .01). New riders gained 4.2 MVPA minutes (P < .05) and lost 12.8 (P < .05) sedentary minutes per 10 hours accelerometer wear. CONCLUSIONS: In light of the health benefits of transit ridership in the complete street area, research should address how to encourage more sustained ridership.

Physical activity mediates the relationship between perceived crime safety and obesity.

OBJECTIVE: The current cross-sectional study tests whether low perceived crime safety is associated with body mass index (BMI) and obesity risk and whether less moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) accounts for part of this relationship. METHOD: Adults (n=864) from a relatively low-income and ethnically mixed neighborhood in Salt Lake City UT (2012) were assessed for perceived crime safety, objective physical activity, and BMI measures. RESULTS: This neighborhood had lower perceived safety than for other published studies utilizing this safety measure. In a mediation test, lower perceived crime safety was significantly associated with higher BMI and greater risk of obesity, net of control variables. Residents with lower perceived safety had less MVPA. Lower MVPA partially explained the relationship between less safety and both elevated BMI and higher obesity risk, suggesting that perceiving less crime safety limits MVPA which, in turn, increases weight. CONCLUSION: In this neighborhood, with relatively low perceived safety from crime, residents' low perceived safety is related to more obesity and higher BMI; lower MVPA among residents explained part of this relationship. If residents are to become more active in their neighborhood it may be important to address perceived crime safety as part of broader efforts to enhance active living.

Adding maps (GPS) to accelerometry data to improve study participants' recall of physical activity: a methodological advance in physical activity research.

OBJECTIVE: Obtaining the 'when, where and why' of healthy bouts of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) provides insights into natural PA. DESIGN: In Salt Lake City, Utah, adults wore accelerometer and Global Positioning System (GPS) loggers for a week in a cross-sectional study to establish baseline travel and activity patterns near a planned Complete Street intervention involving a new rail line, new sidewalks and a bike path. RESULTS: At the end of the week, research assistants met with the 918 participants who had at least three 10 h days of good accelerometer readings. Accelerometer and GPS data were uploaded and integrated within a custom application, and participants were provided with maps and time information for past MVPA bouts of ≥3 min to help them recall bout details. Participants said that 'getting someplace' was, on average, a more important motivation for their bouts than leisure or exercise. A series of recall tests showed that participants recalled most bouts they were asked about, regardless of the duration of the bout, suggesting that participant perceptions of their shorter lifestyle bouts can be studied with this methodology. Visual prompting with a map depicting where each bout took place yielded more accurate recall than prompting with time cues alone. CONCLUSIONS: These techniques provide a novel way to understand participant memories of the context and subjective assessments associated with healthy bouts of PA. Prompts with time-stamped maps that illustrate places of MVPA offer an effective method to improve understanding of activity and its supportive sociophysical contexts.

Re-visiting the relationship between neighbourhood environment and BMI: an instrumental variables approach to correcting for residential selection bias.

BACKGROUND: A burgeoning literature links attributes of neighbourhoods' built environments to residents' physical activity, food and transportation choices, weight, and/or obesity risk. In cross-sectional studies, non-random residential selection impedes researchers' ability to conclude that neighbourhood environments cause these outcomes. METHODS: Cross-sectional data for the current study are based on 14,689 non-Hispanic white women living in Salt Lake County, Utah, USA. Instrumental variables techniques are used to adjust for the possibility that neighbourhoods may affect weight but heavier or lighter women may also choose to live in certain neighbourhoods. All analyses control for the average BMI of siblings and thus familial predisposition for overweight/obesity, which is often an omitted variable in past studies. RESULTS: We find that cross-sectional analyses relating neighbourhood characteristics to BMI understate the strength of the relationship if they do not make statistical adjustments for the decision to live in a walkable neighbourhood. Standard cross-sectional estimation reveals no significant relationship between neighbourhood walkability and BMI. However, the instrumental variables estimates reveal statistically significant effects. CONCLUSIONS: We find evidence that residential selection leads to an understatement of the causal effects of neighbourhood walkability features on BMI. Although caution should be used in generalizing from research done with one demographic group in a single locale, our findings support the contention that public policies designed to alter neighbourhood walkability may moderately affect the BMI of large numbers of individuals.

The changing food environment and neighborhood prevalence of type 2 diabetes.

In this ecological study, we used longitudinal data to assess if changes in neighborhood food environments were associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) prevalence, controlling for a host of neighborhood characteristics and spatial error correlation. We found that the population-adjusted prevalence of fast-food and pizza restaurants, grocery stores, and full-service restaurants along with changes in their numbers from 1990 to 2010 were associated with 2015 T2DM prevalence. The results suggested that neighborhoods where fast-food restaurants have increased and neighborhoods where full-service restaurants have decreased over time may be especially important targets for educational campaigns or other public health-related T2DM interventions.

Walkable new urban LEED_Neighborhood-Development (LEED-ND) community design and children's physical activity: selection, environmental, or catalyst effects?

BACKGROUND: Interest is growing in physical activity-friendly community designs, but few tests exist of communities explicitly designed to be walkable. We test whether students living in a new urbanist community that is also a pilot LEED_ND (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-Neighborhood Development) community have greater accelerometer-measured moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) across particular time periods compared to students from other communities. We test various time/place periods to see if the data best conform to one of three explanations for MVPA. Environmental effects suggest that MVPA occurs when individuals are exposed to activity-friendly settings; selection effects suggest that walkable community residents prefer MVPA, which leads to both their choice of a walkable community and their high levels of MVPA; catalyst effects occur when walking to school creates more MVPA, beyond the school commute, on schooldays but not weekends. METHODS: Fifth graders (n = 187) were sampled from two schools representing three communities: (1) a walkable community, Daybreak, designed with new urbanist and LEED-ND pilot design standards; (2) a mixed community (where students lived in a less walkable community but attended the walkable school so that part of the route to school was walkable), and (3) a less walkable community. Selection threats were addressed through controlling for parental preferences for their child to walk to school as well as comparing in-school MVPA for the walkable and mixed groups. RESULTS: Minutes of MVPA were tested with 3 × 2 (Community by Gender) analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs). Community walkability related to more MVPA during the half hour before and after school and, among boys only, more MVPA after school. Boys were more active than girls, except during the half hour after school. Students from the mixed and walkable communities--who attended the same school--had similar in-school MVPA levels, and community groups did not differ in weekend MVPA, providing little evidence of selection effects. CONCLUSIONS: Even after our controls for selection effects, we find evidence of environmental effects on MVPA. These results suggest that walkable community design, according to new urbanist and LEED_ND pilot design standards, is related to higher MVPA among students at certain times.

Effects of neighborhood walkability on healthy weight: assessing selection and causal influences.

Studies that examine the relationship between neighborhood characteristics and weight are limited because residents are not randomly distributed into neighborhoods. If associations are found between neighborhood characteristics and weight in observational studies, one cannot confidently draw conclusions about causality. We use data from the Utah Population Database (UPDB) that contain body mass index (BMI) information from all drivers holding a Utah driver license to undertake a cross-sectional analysis that compares the neighborhood determinants of BMI for youth and young adults. This analysis assumes that youth have little choice in their residential location while young adults have more choice. Our analysis makes use of data on 53,476 males and 47,069 females living in Salt Lake County in 2000. We find evidence of residential selection among both males and females when BMI is the outcome. The evidence is weaker when the outcomes are overweight or obesity. We conclude that studies that ignore the role of residential selection may be overstating the causal influence of neighborhood features in altering residents' BMI.

Bird-window collisions: Mitigation efficacy and risk factors across two years.

BACKGROUND: Research on bird-window collision mitigation is needed to prevent up to a billion bird fatalities yearly in the U.S. At the University of Utah campus (Salt Lake City, Utah, USA), past research documented collisions, especially for Cedar Waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum) drawn to fruiting ornamental pears in winter. Mirrored windows, which have a metallic coating that turns window exteriors into mirrors, had frequent collisions, which were mitigated when Feather Friendly®bird deterrent markers were applied. Bird-friendly windows-ORNILUX®ultraviolet (UV) and fritted windows-also reduced collisions when data were collected across fall and winter. Extending this prior research, we evaluated additional mitigation and tested the replicability of effects for pear trees, mirrored windows, and bird-friendly windows across two years. METHODS: Using published data from eight buildings monitored for collisions in year 1 (Fall and Winter, 2019-2020), we added another year of monitoring, Fall and Winter, 2020-2021. Between years, Feather Friendly®mitigation markers were added to collision-prone areas of two buildings, including both mirrored and transparent windows. RESULTS: The two buildings that received new Feather Friendly®mitigation had significantly fewer collisions post-mitigation. Control areas also had nonsignificant decline in collisions. The interaction of area (mitigation vs. control) by time (year 1 vs. 2) was significant, based on generalized estimating equations (GEE). The total yearly collisions across all eight buildings declined from 39 to 23. A second GEE analysis of all 8 buildings showed that mirrored windows, pear trees, and bird-friendly windows were each significant when analyzed separately. The best-fit model showed more collisions for mirrored windows and fewer collisions for bird-friendly windows. We found pear tree proximity to be related to more collisions in winter than fall. In addition, pear trees showed reduced collisions from year 1 to 2, consistent with new mitigation for two of three buildings near pear trees. DISCUSSION: Feather Friendly® markers can mitigate collisions with transparent windows, not only mirrored windows, compared to unmitigated areas over 2 years. Results also underscore the dangers of pear tree proximity and mirrored windows and the efficacy of bird-friendly windows. Thus, bird collisions can be prevented by window mitigation, permanent bird-friendly windows, and landscape designs that avoid creating ecological traps.

Are you what your mother weighs? Evaluating the impact of maternal weight trajectories on youth overweight.

In this study, we investigate how three alternative measures of maternal body mass index (BMI) relate to youth overweight. We contrast the typical cross-sectional measure of maternal BMI with a longitudinal mean and a standard deviation in maternal BMI. Using National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data, we estimate logistic regressions that relate maternal BMI to the risk of a youth being overweight while controlling for other familial characteristics. Participants in this study are 918 males and 841 females who were age 16-21 and either healthy weight or overweight in 2006. To be eligible for inclusion, teens were 15 years old by December 2006. After comparing several measures of maternal weight, we find that higher mean maternal BMI measured over the life of the adolescent has the strongest relationship with the odds of youth overweight for both male and female adolescents. For boys, a one unit increase in mother's mean BMI increases the odds of being overweight by 16% (OR = 1.16, 95% CI 1.11-1.20) while for girls the increase in the odds of being overweight is 13% (OR = 1.13, 95% CI 1.09-1.18). Our findings suggest that researchers should move beyond static measures of maternal weight when examining the correlates of youth BMI. Maternal weight histories offer additional insights about the youth's home environment that are associated with the risk of a youth being overweight.

Dog Ownership and Walking: Perceived and Audited Walkability and Activity Correlates.

Few studies assess dog ownership and walking with both self-reported or perceived and audited or objective walkability and physical activity measures. Across two years, we examined both types of walkability and activity measures for residents living within 2km of a "complete street"-one renovated with light rails, bike lanes, and sidewalks. Audited walkability (Irvine-Minnesota Inventory) was more consistently related to dog ownership and walking groups than perceived walkability (Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale-Abbreviated). Self-reported leisure walking was much higher (289-383 min per week) among dog walkers than among other groups (100-270 min per week), despite no difference in accelerometer-measured light or moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Furthermore, the most powerful difference between groups involved single-family detached home residence, which was much lower among non-dog-owners (44%) than among non-dog-walkers or dog walkers (81% and 70%, respectively). Given discrepancies across walkability and activity measures, we recommend future use of walkability audits and objectively measured physical activity over the current emphasis on self-report measures. We also urge greater attention to increased densities of housing, which may negatively affect dog ownership levels unless compensating supports for dog ownership and walking are created by public health messaging, dog-friendly policies, and dog-friendly housing and community design.

Bird-window collisions: different fall and winter risk and protective factors.

BACKGROUND: To reduce bird fatalities from millions of window collisions each year in North America, it is important to understand how design and landscape elements relate to collision risk. The current study extends prior research that found that buildings near ornamental pear trees (Prunus calleryana) and buildings with mirrored windows significantly increased odds of collisions among eight buildings on the University of Utah campus in winter. The previous study found bird-friendly glass was not related to collision risk, although only one fatality occurred at two buildings with ORNILUX® ultraviolet (UV) or fritted windows. We reasoned that extending data collection to include fall might provide a better test of efficacy. We tested the following three hypotheses: (1) Buildings with mirrored windows would experience more collisions, replicating the original study; (2) the addition of fall migration data would reveal fewer collisions at the buildings with bird-friendly windows; (3) the danger of pear tree proximity would be heightened in winter, when fruit is ripe enough to appeal to frugivores, especially the Cedar Waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum) that frequent these trees. METHODS: Trained observers monitored buildings three times per week in Fall (September 12 to October 27, 2019) and Winter (October 29, 2019 to January 24, 2020). Collisions were photographed and documented in the iNaturalist University of Utah Bird Window Collision Project. RESULTS: There were 39 total collisions, from 0 to 14 per building.Using generalized estimating equations, buildings near pear trees had 3.33-fold increased odds, mirrored windows had 5.92-fold increased odds, and bird-friendly windows had an 84% lower odds (Odds ratio = 0.16) of bird window collisions when analyzed separately; all were statistically significant (p < 0.01). A test of all possible combinations of risk and protective factors revealed that the best fit model included pear trees (odds = 2.31) and mirrored windows (odds = 2.33). A separate analysis tested the pear tree by season interaction model; it yielded the deadliest combination, with 40-fold increased odds for buildings near pear trees in winter season. DISCUSSION: This research provides the first peer-reviewed evidence found for the efficacy of bird-friendly fritted windows and ORNILUX ® UV windows in buildings. In addition, it replicated a study that established the dangers of mirrored windows and fruiting pear trees near buildings. These risks were especially dangerous to Cedar Waxwings, who constituted 62.2% of the identifiable window collision victims. This research highlights how building risks depend on window design, landscape choices, species, and season. If replicated, analyses of risk factors can help identify buildings that require mitigation to make existing windows less deadly. Results also support the installation of bird-friendly glass in new or renovated buildings to reduce fatalities.

Mixed land use and walkability: Variations in land use measures and relationships with BMI, overweight, and obesity.

Few studies compare alternative measures of land use diversity or mix in relationship to body mass index. We compare four types of diversity measures: entropy scores (measures of equal distributions of walkable land use categories), distances to walkable destinations (parks and transit stops), proxy measures of mixed use (walk to work measures and neighborhood housing ages), and land use categories used in entropy scores. Generalized estimating equations, conducted on 5000 randomly chosen licensed drivers aged 25-64 in Salt Lake County, Utah, relate lower BMIs to older neighborhoods, components of a 6-category land use entropy score, and nearby light rail stops. Thus the presence of walkable land uses, rather than their equal mixture, relates to healthy weight.

Residents' expectations for new rail stops: Optimistic neighborhood perceptions relate to subsequent transit ridership.

Although complete street policies are proliferating, little is known about how nearby residents perceive and act on their new active transportation opportunities. We survey the same neighborhood residents before and after they receive a new complete street renovation with five new light rail stops. We compare Time-1 expectations to use rail with Time-2 evidence of rail use, based on both self-reported and objective GPS/accelerometer measures of ridership. We examine neighborhood perceptions of four groups, created by combining Time-1 expectations to ride with Time-2 ridership: No expect/no ride, no expect/ride, expect/no ride, and expect/ride. The strongest differences were between the no expect/no ride and expect/ride groups. The riders had more positive expectations for light rail's impact on the neighborhood than non-riders; these broad expectations were more powerfully associated with rail ridership than individual barriers to use, such as time constraints or weather. More positive perceptions of the route to rail stops (pleasantness, traffic safety, and crime safety) were also held by riders. Some of the more positive perceptions helped distinguish between the expect/ride group and the expect/no ride group. These results underscore that increasing positive neighborhood perceptions might help convert expected riders into actual riders.

Winter bird-window collisions: mitigation success, risk factors, and implementation challenges.

Millions of birds die in bird-window collisions in the United States each year. In specialized test settings, researchers have developed methods to alter window designs to mitigate collisions. However, few published studies provide pretest and posttest evaluations of mitigation treatment areas and untreated control areas on existing buildings. We initially monitored bird-window collisions at a single building on the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, during winter 1 (November 9, 2017-January 2, 2018). We found 15 bird-window collisions, most under a portion of the building with a mirrored façade. To test a mitigation treatment, we installed Feather Friendly® bird deterrent film on part of the mirrored façade after winter 1. The unmitigated areas of the same building served as a control area. We continued monitoring during the following winter 2 (November 15, 2018-January 12, 2019). The treated area collisions declined from seven before mitigation to two after mitigation, a 71% reduction. The control area had eight collisions at both times. Results of a generalized estimating equation yielded a significant area by season interaction effect (p = 0.03) and fewer collisions in the mitigated area than the control area at winter 2 (p = 0.03), supporting efficacy of the mitigation. In winter 2 we also expanded monitoring to eight total buildings to evaluate the risks of mirrored windows and proximity to fruiting pear trees (Prunus calleryana) and the benefits of bird-friendly glass. Bird-friendly glass, found on two buildings, included windows with permanent fritted dots or embedded ultraviolet patterns. We counted 22 collisions across the eight buildings. Mirrored windows and proximity to fruiting pear trees related to higher odds of bird-window collisions, based on separate generalized estimating equations. The best fit model included mirrored windows and pear trees. The two buildings with bird-friendly glass had only one collision, suggesting that these designs deter collisions, although the difference was not statistically significant. To publicize the study and to receive reports of additional bird collisions or fatalities on campus, we created a citizen science project on iNaturalist and engaged in additional outreach efforts that yielded 22 ad hoc reports. Many previous studies have documented Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum) collisions, but at relatively low numbers. Cedar Waxwings accounted for 31 of 34 identifiable collisions from the monitoring study and 4 of 21 identifiable collisions or fatalities from ad hoc reports.

Walkability and body mass index density, design, and new diversity measures.

BACKGROUND: Rising rates of overweight and obesity in the U.S. have increased interest in community designs that encourage healthy weight. This study relates neighborhood walkability-density, pedestrian-friendly design, and two novel measures of land-use diversity-to residents' excess weight. METHODS: Walkable-environment measures include two established predictors, higher density and pedestrian-friendly design (intersections within 0.25 mile of each address), and two new census-based, land-use diversity measures: the proportion of residents walking to work and the median age of housing. In 2006, weight, height, age, and address data from 453,927 Salt Lake County driver licenses for persons aged 25-64 years were linked to 2000 Census and GIS street-network information that was analyzed in 2007-2008. Linear regressions of BMI and logistic regressions of overweight and obesity include controls for individual-level age and neighborhood-level racial/ethnic composition, median age of residents, and median family income. RESULTS: Increasing levels of walkability decrease the risks of excess weight. Approximately doubling the proportion of neighborhood residents walking to work decreases an individual's risk of obesity by almost 10%. Adding a decade to the average age of neighborhood housing decreases women's risk of obesity by about 8% and men's by 13%. Population density is unrelated to weight in four of six models, and inconsistently related to weight measures in two models. Pedestrian-friendly street networks are unrelated to BMI but related to lower risks of overweight and obesity in three of four models. CONCLUSIONS: Walkability indicators, particularly the two land-use diversity measures, are important predictors of body weight. Driver licenses should be considered as a source of data for community studies of BMI, as they provide extensive coverage at low cost.

A new rail stop: tracking moderate physical activity bouts and ridership.

BACKGROUND: The natural intervention of a new light-rail stop in a neighborhood is examined for relationships with ridership and moderate-activity bouts. DESIGN: At Time 1, surveys and 1-week accelerometer readings assess transit use and moderate- activity bouts. One year later (Time 2), after the opening of a new light-rail stop, measures were repeated. SETTING/PARTICIPANTS: During the summers of 2005 and 2006, 51 residents participated from a low-income, mixed ethnicity neighborhood in Salt Lake City, Utah. INTERVENTION: A new light-rail stop was built and opened in the middle of the surveyed neighborhood. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Physical activity was measured as a bout of 8 or more minutes of moderate activity (3.0 metabolic units [METS]), according to accelerometer counts, controlling for hours worn. Prompted recalls allowed moderate-activity bouts to be labeled as walks to transit or not. RESULTS: Analyses in 2006-2007 show that the percentage of rail riders increased significantly, from 50% to 68.75%, after the stop opened. In cross-sectional analyses at Times 1 and 2, self-reported rides on light rail were significantly related to more moderate-activity bouts, controlling for gender, household size, and home ownership. Longitudinally, with the same control variables and adding Time 1 moderate activity, light-rail rides at Time 2 predicted increased Time 2 moderate activity. CONCLUSIONS: A new rail stop was associated with increased ridership. Walks to light rail were associated, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally, with moderate-activity bouts.

Complex active travel bout motivations: Gender, place, and social context associations.

Active travel bouts are healthy, but bout-specific motives, social, and physical contexts have been poorly characterized. Adults (n= 421 in 2012, 436 in 2013) described their moderate activity bouts over the past week, aided by accelerometry/GPS data integration. Participants viewed maps indicating date, time, and starting and ending locations of their past week moderate-to-vigorous active travel bouts of 3 or more minutes. These prompts helped participants recall their social and physical contexts and motives for the bouts. Three bout motivations were modeled: leisure, transportation, and their "T-L" difference scores (transportation minus leisure scores). Blends of leisure and transportation motives characterized most bouts, even though most studies do not allow participants to endorse multiple motives for their active travel. Bouts were often neighborhood-based. Leisure motives were related to pleasant place perceptions, homes, and exercise places; workplaces were associated with stronger transportation and T-L bout motives. Women's bout motives were more closely associated with place than men's. Our novel method of individual bout assessment can illuminate the social-ecological contexts and experiences of everyday healthy bouts of activity.