Continuing our collaboration with the NYU Women’s Health Study team (see here) to understand how neighborhood walkability affects chronic disease risk, we recently published a paper showing that higher walkability is associated with lower diabetes risk. 

Among 11,037 women free of diabetes at baseline and followed for a median of 25.6 years, a higher average annual neighborhood walkability index score for the women’s residential neighborhoods was associated with a significantly lower risk of developing diabetes.  Compared to those living in the bottom quartile of walkability index score, those in the top quartile had a 33% (95% CI 26%, 39%) lower risk of incident diabetes.  The associations between walkability and incident diabetes were stronger for postmenopausal women compared to premenopausal women.

Neighborhood walkability is a concept developed by urban planners and describes a set of neighborhood characteristics that support pedestrian activity and engagement in active transport. Walkability is often described in terms of “the D’s” – density, diversity, design, destination accessibility and distance to transit.  Density refers to residential and retail density, diversity refers to the mix of land uses, design pertains to the layout of the street grid, destination accessibility is the availability of destinations to travel to such as stores and parks, and distance to transit is the physical distance to public transportation.  Additional neighborhood characteristics such as aesthetics and safety can also promote walking and are often described as being part of neighborhood walkability. We have developed a Neighborhood Walkability Index (NWI) that can be implemented across the United States going back to 1990.