Does built environment influence physical activity and body postures in homework journeys?

Abstract Understanding the effects of built environment on physical activity is important for promoting healthy lifestyles in cities. Yet, very few studies have used objective continuous location data and measures of physical activity while addressing biases to causal inference. In addition, the effect of the environment on body postures during trips, albeit of physiological importance, is rarely addressed. Using mixed models for compositional data on sensor-derived physical activity information, we estimated the effects of greenery, destination density, public transport time efficiency, and average area education among 692 home-work journeys made by 121 healthy adults (80 men, 41 women). Higher levels of greenery, public transport time efficiency, and average area education along the shortest network path between home and workplaces were found to reduce contemporaneous sedentary postures and increase physical activity. These relationships suggest that decision makers should consider greening cities and improving public transport efficiency as an effective way to reduce the prevalence of sedentary behaviors in our societies.