Three case studies are provided below to walk users through the processing of selecting appropriate measures for their project. The case studies cover a wide range of research and practice project purposes and apply several of the selection considerations covered in Section 7.

Case Study 1: Improving Streetscapes and Parks Around Schools

Background

A local bicycle and pedestrian advocacy organization is working with the city planning department to improve environments around schools to support active living. The organization plans to apply for grant funding to support specific environmental improvements and would like the improvement targets to be identified through a community needs assessment. Their goal is to identify specific locations and types of improvements for which to seek funding.

Considerations

The organization is interested in environmental attributes that would be feasible to modify during the two-year grant period. They do not have much influence over home, school, and other building environments, but they have some influence over neighborhood and park environment modifications through their partnership with the city planning and parks departments.

The organization also wants to assess neighborhood and park environments, but not to use GIS-based measures because community design attributes available in GIS are at the macro-level and not easily changed (e.g., residential density and land use mix). The organization considers using self-reports but ultimately rejects that idea because (1) they do not have expertise in community surveys, and (2) audit tools are more specific with regard to identifying areas and attributes to target for improvement. Thus, both streetscapes and park audit tools appear to be well-suited for this project. Because the organization wishes to involve community members in the project, they need brief tools that will require little training, pinpoint modifiable features in need of improvement, and produce simple results metrics that can be easily communicated to the grant funder.

Measure Selection

In looking for a streetscape tool, the organization selects the Measures Registry filter options “Physical Activity Environment” and “Environmental Observation,” and types “street” into the search field. Approximately 15 results are shown. Some results are immediately ruled out for various reasons (e.g., Google Street View tool, rural tool, senior tool). About 10 tools are compared using the “Compare” check box. The organization narrows the results to the tools that have the instrument available in the Registry, approximately five tools. Based on the content desired, the organization considers the Active Neighborhood Checklist,¹⁴⁵ Microscale Audit of Pedestrian Streetscapes-Mini (MAPS-Mini),^81,85 Pedestrian Environmental Quality Index (PEQI),¹⁴⁶ and Systematic Pedestrian and Cycling Environment Scan (SPACES).⁸² PEQI is ruled out because little evidence for reliability and validity is available. SPACES is ruled out because it is too lengthy.

The organization uses the same search parameters to identify park audit tools, and “park” is typed into the search box. About 15 results are provided but some are immediately ruled out because they are not exclusively focused on parks and thus lack the detail the organization desires. Using the “Compare” check box, the organization narrows the candidates to the Bedimo-Rung Assessment Tool,¹⁴⁷ Environmental Assessment of Public Recreation Spaces (EAPRS),⁵⁷ Physical Activity Resource Assessment (PARA)⁹¹ and Community Park Audit Tool (CPAT).⁹⁰ PARA is ruled out because it lacks the level of detail desired.

For the streetscape audit tool, the organization selects the Active Neighborhood Checklist because it is brief, includes a codebook and training materials, has been previously used by practitioners, and has evidence of reliability and validity.¹⁴⁵ They strategically select street blocks to audit near elementary schools to represent points of pedestrian access to each school. The CPAT park audit tool is selected because of its previous use by practitioners and evidence of reliability and validity. However, CPAT includes 140 items, and the organization is concerned about resources and time burden. Thus, they select a subset of items based on community input and published evidence of reliability and validity of the subscales.

Case Study 2: Investigating How Multiple Key Environments Explain Children’s Physical Activity

Background

A project team is planning a large multi-region study to better understand how the transportation and recreation physical activity of children ages 6 to 10 years is related to the supportiveness of the various environments the children encounter on a regular basis.

Considerations

The project team would like to assess several of the key environments where children spend their time. Based on previous studies, the team identifies the home, school, and neighborhood as key environments to include in their study.

Because of the large sample size needed and desire to cover multiple environments, the team needs to identify measures that do not pose a high data collection burden or cost. Although streetscape audit tools would inform this project, the team ultimately decides not to use audit tools because of the large amount of time required to travel to participants’ neighborhoods and collect audit data (though observations using Google Street View would be an option in this circumstance).

For community design and transportation system measures, the project team considers GIS-based measures, given their relative ease in large samples, but they make sure to investigate the availability and comparability of GIS databases across the regions being considered for the study. For home, school, and streetscape environment measures, the team prefers proxy-report (e.g., parent report) when available because audits would be too costly, and the children are viewed as being too young to use self-report. Because this is a novel project, the team desires comprehensive measures with strong evidence of reliability and validity.

Measures Selection

The team searches the Measures Registry by selecting the filter options “Physical Activity Environment” and “GIS.” Age category is not selected because of the relevance of GIS variables across age groups. Rather than using the “Compare” check box, the team views each of the approximately 25 results individually. Measures without evidence of construct validity, as indicated in the “Validity” tab, are ruled out. The remaining results are reviewed and examined for consensus (i.e., GIS variables that appear across multiple results).

More than 75 results are displayed when the team selects the “Physical Activity Environment” and “Questionnaire” check boxes, and type in “neighborhood.” Results that have the instrument attached and that appear to meet their criteria based on title are compared using the “Compare” check box. Those without evidence of reliability and validity are ruled out. As the results narrow, the team views the tools for their comprehensiveness and frequency of use. Some of the candidate measures are entered into a scientific literature search engine to estimate frequency of use.

The team searches for home environment report tools using the search term “Home” and selecting the “Questionnaire” check box. In reviewing the approximately 50 results, only those with a link to the instrument are considered, and the project team has difficulty identifying physical environment tools that are specific to the home setting (most are related to the home neighborhood or parenting behaviors). Two potential candidates are identified and reviewed for more detail: the Healthy Home Survey⁹⁵ and Perceived Environment Survey on Safety, Aesthetics and Physical Activity.¹¹¹ The same process is used to search for school physical environment report tools, with similar difficulties. Many of the search results are for school neighborhoods, child care facilities, or school policies/practices, or lack a link to the instrument. The team expands their search to include observational audits. Very few candidates are identified from the Registry, suggesting a lack of assessment tools in this area.

The project team selects GIS-based residential density, land use mix, street connectivity, and park access for assessing community design and transportation system factors because of their consistent use in various publications in the Measures Registry and their associations with children’s physical activity in previous studies. They consider GIS-based composite measures/indices, such as the walkability index by Frank et al.,⁴³ and choose the Cervero and Kockelman index⁷⁴ because of its level of detail and comprehensiveness, compared to the Frank index, which comprises only four variables.

The parent report Neighborhood Environment Walkability Survey (NEWS)⁶⁶ is selected because it covers features not available through GIS, such as sidewalk attributes and aesthetics, and has evidence of reliability and validity in relation to youth physical activity. The parent report tool developed by Hume et al.¹¹¹ is selected as the home environment report tool because of its strong measurement properties and previous use in research. The school environment audit tool developed by Jones et al.⁵⁸ is selected as the school environment report tool because of its level of detail, but it is first tested in a subsample to investigate its reliability and validity when completed by trained school key informants rather than using in-person audits.

Case Study 3: Evaluating Changes Resulting from Streetscape Neighborhood Renovation Projects

Background

A redevelopment grant is awarded to a city with special emphasis on pedestrian-oriented renovation projects through the city’s main urban corridor. A project team would like to evaluate the extent to which the grant results in improvements in streetscape features known in previous studies to be associated with physical activity.

Considerations

The team chooses a pre-post design so that environmental changes can be captured across the one-year project. Because the renovation projects are focused on streetscape features, the team narrows in on streetscape report and audit tools. Although community member perceptions are important, audit tools are desirable because they provide a higher level of specificity than report tools. The constructs assessed need to have shown consistent relationships with physical activity in previous studies, so construct validity is especially important. The tool needs to be sensitive to change, particularly the changes being targeted by the renovation projects. Although most environmental assessment tools have not been evaluated for whether they can capture changes over short periods of time (e.g., one-year), the level of specificity provided by some audit tools is likely to be sensitive to the changes being targeted.

Measures Selection

The team selects the Measures Registry filter options “Physical Activity Environment” and “Environmental Observation,” and types “street” into the search field. However, several relevant tools are left out when “street” is used in the search box, so this term is omitted. Simple checklist tools are ruled out because high detail and specificity are desired. A handful of relevant tools are selected based on their title and availability of the instrument. The candidates are compared using the “Compare” check box. The team considers the Irvine-Minnesota Inventory (IMI),⁸³ Microscale Audit of Pedestrian Streetscapes (MAPS),⁶⁴ and Pedestrian Environment Data Scan (PEDS)⁸⁴ because they are extensive instruments with similar content and have supporting evidence.

The IMI tool is selected because of its specificity, evidence of reliability and validity, and use in multiple previous studies. In reviewing previous publications using IMI, the team identifies several items and scales that (1) have consistent associations with walking for transportation and/or leisure across age groups, and (2) appear to have the ability of being affected over the one-year time frame of the grant.