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Table 1 Built and socioeconomic environment source measures: data sources and variable descriptions1

From: Residential self-selection bias in the estimation of built environment effects on physical activity between adolescence and young adulthood

  

Data Year

  

Measure

Data Source

Wave I

Wave III

Geographic Area2

Variable description

Street connectivity (Alpha index)

ESRI StreetMap

19993

20033

1 k

Ratio of observed to maximum possible route alternatives between nodes (intersections); high values indicate high street connectivity.

Pay facilities availability (count per 10,000 population)

Dun and Bradstreet

1995

2001

3 k

Number of pay facilities per 10,000 population (population count from Census, see below). Includes Instruction (e.g., dance studios, basketball instruction, martial arts), Member (e.g., athletic club and gymnasium, tennis club, basketball club), and Public fee (e.g., physical fitness facilities, bicycle rental, public golf courses) facilities identified by 8-digit Standard Industrial Code.

Public facilities availability (count per 10,000 population)

Dun and Bradstreet

1995

2001

3 k

Number of public facilities per 10,000 population (population count from Census, see below). e.g., public beach, pools, tennis courts, recreation centers identified by 8-digit Standard Industrial Code.

Landscape diversity (Simpson's diversity index)

National land cover dataset

1992

2001

1 k

Represents the probability that any two pixels selected at random are different patch types.

Population count

U.S. Census

1990

2000

3 k

Count of persons within buffer, calculated by averaging census block-group population counts, weighted according to the proportion of block-group area captured within 3 k

Median household income

U.S. Census

1990

2000

CT

Median household income. Wave I values were inflated to 2000 dollars using the Consumer Price Index.

Crime rate

Uniform Crime Reporting data

1995

2001

Co

Number of non-violent and violent crimes per 100,000 population (provided in source dataset; buffer-based population counts listed above were not used to calculate crime rate)

  1. 1From the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (United States; Wave I, 1994-95; Wave III, 2001-02), Obesity Neighborhood Environment Database (ONEdata). Measures selected based on prior research showing them to adequately represent multidimensional environmental constructs
  2. 2Selected neighborhood definitions were selected because they yielded the strongest associations between environment measures and physical activity in previous analysis [20].
  3. 3 Wave I used ESRI Streetmap 2000 (reflecting ground conditions in 1999), Wave III used ESRI Streetmap Pro (reflecting ground conditions in July 2003)
  4. 1 k, 3 k, 1 and 3 kilometer Euclidean buffer; CT, census tract; Co, County; U.S., United States