Chapter 10: Physical Activity in the Built Environment: Synthesis of a Workshop

This chapter summarizes the discussions that resulted from a workshop focused on the links between transportation and health. The relationships between the physical environment and the levels of physical activity are of increasing interest to policy researchers as obesity and associated negative health outcomes are growing dramatically in many nations. Transportation choices, such as walking and cycling, can be a source of physical activity, and the approaches of travel and activity behaviour researchers have something to offer this emerging area of study. Yet, the questions posed here are interdisciplinary, intersecting the fields of public health, planning and design. Thus, transportation researchers can benefit from understanding the data requirements and approaches of the health professions, which are often quite different from our own. Of specific interest to the workshop participants are the salient questions being asked by these disciplines, the various kinds of information needed to advance the line of inquiry and the most promising approaches to gathering appropriate data.