Abstract
 Neighborhood Characteristics and Physical Activity Track: Health and Human Services Author(s): Scott Ashwood, Adrian Overton In this paper we will discuss the methods we have used to create a set of neighborhood-level measures and how we have used them in our analysis of physical activity (PA) in adolescent girls. This research is an ancillary study to a multicentered group (school) randomized controlled intervention trial, called the Trial of Activity for Adolescent Girls (TAAG), that is designed to increase PA among sixth grade girls over a three-year period. We will describe the neighborhood-level variables that we created using ArcGIS. We have created and used street network measures, measures of access to facilities that support PA (parks, gyms, dance studios, etc.), land-use measures, and climate measures. In addition to explaining the measures produced, the paper will include details of how we used ArcGIS to explore the various measures of neighborhood characteristics that were sensitive to scale effects and various neighborhood configurations. Scott Ashwood RAND 201 N Craig St Suite 202 Pittsburgh , PA 15213 US Phone: 412-341-2016 E-mail: ashwood@rand.org Adrian Overton RAND 1776 Main Street PO Box 2138 Santa Monica , CA 90407-2138 US Phone: 310-393-0411 E-mail: adrian_overton@rand.org |
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