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BACKGROUND: Physical activity is associated with lower risks of diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease, independent of obesity. The built environment is important for encouraging physical activity as residents near sidewalks, parks, and gyms are more active. However, data on the built environment and health outcomes has been has been narrow in scope with small studies covering limited geographic areas. The County Health Rankings aimed to create a county-level, nationally-representative measure of physical activity access by incorporating park and recreational facility data.
METHODS: Data was acquired from ESRI, Delorme MapMart, OneSource Global Business Browser and the U.S. Census. Using ArcGIS a half mile buffer was created around local, state, and national parks and one (urban) and three (rural) mile buffers were created around recreational facilities. The buffered files were intersected with U.S. Census Tigerline files to join census block population data. Census blocks where at least one of the buffered physical activity layers overlapped the census block were considered to have access to a location for physical activity. The population with access and the total population were aggregated to the county-level. The final measure was the percentage of individuals in a county with access to a location for physical activity.
RESULTS: The dataset covered 3,114 of 3,144 counties. The average county population with access to at least one physical activity location was 52.2% (range 0 – 100%) and was associated most notably with premature death (r = -0.363) and obesity (r=-0.360).
CONCLUSIONS: Increased access to opportunities for physical activity is associated with lower premature death and obesity rates at the county level. The measure is the first to incorporate both park and recreational facility data at the national level and is an example of how ArcGIS can be used to create an easy to communicate built environment measure.