We just published new work in the American Journal of Epidemiology on the beneficial, cumulative effect of living in neighborhoods with higher walkability on body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference.  In collaboration with the REGARDS team and Drexel’s Urban Health Collaborative, we estimated the walkability of the residential neighborhoods of REGARDS participants, each year, from 2003 to 2016. We found that after ~10 years of follow-up, experiencing higher cumulative neighborhood walkability was associated with significantly lower BMI and smaller waist circumferences for the participants. 

We also investigated whether changes in address were associated with changes in neighborhood walkability, that is: when people move, do they tend to move to more or less walkable neighborhoods?  We found that the first change of residence during follow-up, on average, brought the participants to neighborhoods with higher home values and lower walkability than their originating neighborhoods. Subsequent changes in address brought participants to neighborhoods with similar home values and walkability levels, as their prior neighborhood.

This work adds to the longitudinal evidence that urban design, particularly neighborhood walkability, influences health.