IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v16y2019i8p1340-d222637.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cognitive and Sensory Dimensions of Older People’s Preferences of Outdoor Spaces for Walking: A Survey Study in Ireland

Author

Listed:
  • Marica Cassarino

    (School of Applied Psychology, University College Cork, Enterprise Centre, North Mall, T23 TK30 Cork City, Ireland)

  • Eleanor Bantry-White

    (School of Applied Social Studies, University College Cork, William Thompson House, Donovan’s Road, T12 E6F3 Cork City, Ireland)

  • Annalisa Setti

    (School of Applied Psychology, University College Cork, Enterprise Centre, North Mall, T23 TK30 Cork City, Ireland)

Abstract

Background: Physical exercise, particularly walking, benefits healthy ageing. Understanding the environmental circumstances in which exercise occurs is crucial to the promotion of physical activity in older age. Most studies have focused on the structural dimensions of environments that may foster walking; however, individual differences in how older people perceive and interact with outdoor spaces need further attention. This study explored the cognitive and sensory dimensions of preferences of outdoor spaces for walking. Methods: We invited 112 healthy community-dwelling people aged ≥60 years to complete a survey to test associations between walking preferences and cognitive/sensory vulnerability. A subsample also completed focus groups/walk along interviews to explore qualitatively the cognitive/sensory reasons for outdoor walking preferences. Results: While most participants indicated a preference for outdoor spaces that offer variety and greenery, we observed a complex association between individual cognitive/sensory needs (stimulation seeking vs. avoidance), preferences for social interactions, and the place of residence urbanity level. Furthermore, walking preferences varied based on the purpose of the walk (recreation vs. transportation). Conclusions: Our findings support an ecological approach to understanding determinants of physical activity in older age, which consider the interaction between individual cognitive processing and the environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Marica Cassarino & Eleanor Bantry-White & Annalisa Setti, 2019. "Cognitive and Sensory Dimensions of Older People’s Preferences of Outdoor Spaces for Walking: A Survey Study in Ireland," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(8), pages 1-12, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:8:p:1340-:d:222637
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/8/1340/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/8/1340/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sugiyama, T. & Francis, J. & Middleton, N.J. & Owen, N. & Giles-CortI, B., 2010. "Associations between recreational walking and attractiveness, size, and proximity of neighborhood open spaces," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 100(9), pages 1752-1757.
    2. Florian Lederbogen & Peter Kirsch & Leila Haddad & Fabian Streit & Heike Tost & Philipp Schuch & Stefan Wüst & Jens C. Pruessner & Marcella Rietschel & Michael Deuschle & Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, 2011. "City living and urban upbringing affect neural social stress processing in humans," Nature, Nature, vol. 474(7352), pages 498-501, June.
    3. Tiina E. Laatikainen & Mohammad Haybatollahi & Marketta Kyttä, 2018. "Environmental, Individual and Personal Goal Influences on Older Adults’ Walking in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(1), pages 1-19, December.
    4. Sara Tilley & Chris Neale & Agnès Patuano & Steve Cinderby, 2017. "Older People’s Experiences of Mobility and Mood in an Urban Environment: A Mixed Methods Approach Using Electroencephalography (EEG) and Interviews," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(2), pages 1-20, February.
    5. Chaudhury, Habib & Campo, Michael & Michael, Yvonne & Mahmood, Atiya, 2016. "Neighbourhood environment and physical activity in older adults," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 104-113.
    6. Katherine Brookfield & Catharine Ward Thompson & Iain Scott, 2017. "The Uncommon Impact of Common Environmental Details on Walking in Older Adults," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(2), pages 1-10, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Valkiria Amaya & Matthias Chardon & Thibauld Moulaert & Nicolas Vuillerme, 2024. "Systematic Review of the Use of the Walk-Along Interview Method to Assess Factors, Facilitators and Barriers Related to Perceived Neighborhood Environment and Walking Activity in Healthy Older Adults," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(2), pages 1-22, January.
    2. Valkiria Amaya & Matthias Chardon & Helen Klein & Thibauld Moulaert & Nicolas Vuillerme, 2022. "What Do We Know about the Use of the Walk-along Method to Identify the Perceived Neighborhood Environment Correlates of Walking Activity in Healthy Older Adults: Methodological Considerations Related ," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-37, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ben Senkler & Julius Freymueller & Susanne Lopez Lumbi & Claudia Hornberg & Hannah-Lea Schmid & Kristina Hennig-Fast & Gernot Horstmann & Timothy Mc Call, 2022. "Urbanicity—Perspectives from Neuroscience and Public Health: A Scoping Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-16, December.
    2. Myriam Preuß & Mark Nieuwenhuijsen & Sandra Marquez & Marta Cirach & Payam Dadvand & Margarita Triguero-Mas & Christopher Gidlow & Regina Grazuleviciene & Hanneke Kruize & Wilma Zijlema, 2019. "Low Childhood Nature Exposure is Associated with Worse Mental Health in Adulthood," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(10), pages 1-18, May.
    3. Marcia G. Ory & Matthew Lee Smith, 2017. "What If Healthy Aging Is the ‘New Normal’?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-5, November.
    4. Valkiria Amaya & Thibauld Moulaert & Luc Gwiazdzinski & Nicolas Vuillerme, 2022. "Assessing and Qualifying Neighborhood Walkability for Older Adults: Construction and Initial Testing of a Multivariate Spatial Accessibility Model," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(3), pages 1-18, February.
    5. Charlotte Wendelboe-Nelson & Sarah Kelly & Marion Kennedy & John W. Cherrie, 2019. "A Scoping Review Mapping Research on Green Space and Associated Mental Health Benefits," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(12), pages 1-49, June.
    6. Sadiq R. Younes & Bruno Marques & Jacqueline McIntosh, 2024. "Public Spaces for Older People: A Review of the Relationship between Public Space to Quality of Life," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(11), pages 1-16, May.
    7. Watanabe, Hajime & Maruyama, Takuya, 2024. "A Bayesian sample selection model with a binary outcome for handling residential self-selection in individual car ownership," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    8. Meryem Hayir-Kanat & Jürgen Breuste, 2019. "Which Natural Areas are Preferred for Recreation? An Investigation of the Most Popular Natural Resting Types for Istanbul," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(23), pages 1-14, November.
    9. Larissa Samaan & Leonie Klock & Sandra Weber & Mirjam Reidick & Leonie Ascone & Simone Kühn, 2024. "Low-Level Visual Features of Window Views Contribute to Perceived Naturalness and Mental Health Outcomes," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 21(5), pages 1-35, May.
    10. Xiaohu Zhang & Scott Melbourne & Chinmoy Sarkar & Alain Chiaradia & Chris Webster, 2020. "Effects of green space on walking: Does size, shape and density matter?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(16), pages 3402-3420, December.
    11. Chorong Song & Harumi Ikei & Bum-Jin Park & Juyoung Lee & Takahide Kagawa & Yoshifumi Miyazaki, 2018. "Psychological Benefits of Walking through Forest Areas," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-10, December.
    12. Migle Baceviciene & Rasa Jankauskiene, 2022. "The Mediating Effect of Nature Restorativeness, Stress Level, and Nature Connectedness in the Association between Nature Exposure and Quality of Life," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(4), pages 1-15, February.
    13. Abdullah Addas & Ahmad Maghrabi, 2021. "Social Evaluation of Public Open Space Services and Their Impact on Well-Being: A Micro-Scale Assessment from a Coastal University," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-19, April.
    14. Jake M. Robinson & Martin F. Breed, 2019. "Green Prescriptions and Their Co-Benefits: Integrative Strategies for Public and Environmental Health," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-14, January.
    15. Colette Cunningham-Myrie & Katherine P Theall & Novie Younger-Coleman & Lisa-Gaye Greene & Parris Lyew-Ayee & Rainford Wilks, 2021. "Associations of neighborhood physical and crime environments with obesity-related outcomes in Jamaica," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(4), pages 1-19, April.
    16. LU, Yi & Zhao, Jianting & Wu, Xueying & Lo, Siu Ming, 2020. "Escaping to nature in pandemic: a natural experiment of COVID-19 in Asian cities," SocArXiv rq8sn, Center for Open Science.
    17. Guillem Artigues & Sara Mateo & Maria Ramos & Elena Cabeza, 2020. "Validation of the Urban Walkability Perception Questionnaire (UWPQ) in the Balearic Islands," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(18), pages 1-16, September.
    18. Amer Habibullah & Nawaf Alhajaj & Ahmad Fallatah, 2022. "One-Kilometer Walking Limit during COVID-19: Evaluating Accessibility to Residential Public Open Spaces in a Major Saudi City," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-16, October.
    19. Hiromi Suenaga & Kanako Murakami & Nozomi Murata & Syoriki Nishikawa & Masae Tsutsumi & Hiroshi Nogaki, 2020. "The Effects of an Artificial Garden on Heart Rate Variability among Healthy Young Japanese Adults," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(24), pages 1-10, December.
    20. Finlay, Jessica & Esposito, Michael & Langa, Kenneth M. & Judd, Suzanne & Clarke, Philippa, 2022. "Cognability: An Ecological Theory of neighborhoods and cognitive aging," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 309(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:8:p:1340-:d:222637. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.