Neighborhood Environment Audit Tool For Senior Walking

Urbanization in combination with population aging should require cities to redesign built environment in order to accommodate older adults’ needs.As an important component of the external environment of the residential area,the adaptation and renovation of the walking environment is particularly urgent.The renovation needs to be based on an in-depth understanding of the internal relationship between the characteristics of the neighborhood environment and walking among older adults,Therefore,the purpose of this study is to construct a scientific,quantitative and easy-to-operate audit tool to objectively evaluate the current situation of the neighborhood environment and provide decision-making basis for the renovation.First,the rough conceptual framework of audit tools builds upon existing work in this area and meta-analysis method is innovatively introduced to carry out statistical tests on it.Referring to the built environment variables in the above work,the framework is expanded to form the initial version of the audit tool.Secondly,based on the cross-sectional data collected from eight residential districts in Tianjin and Zhuzhou,the reliability and validity of the initial version of the audit tool are tested.The reliability test includes the inter-assessor reliability and retest reliability using the percentage agreement as an standard.Validity test is based on multi-level linear regression models,including binary linear regression model and multiple linear regression model.The final version of the audit tool includes the items that meet the reliability and validity test standards.Finally,the final version of the tool was re-examined with practical examples to prove its effectiveness,the scores of eight neighborhood were calculated and compared with the outcomes of elderly’s walking.According to the scoring results,the current situation of residential areas is evaluated,and the environmental characters that need to be renovated are screened,which shows its in providing decision-making basis for the current situation assessment and the early stage of residential renovation design.