Association between walkability and physical activity among children and adolescents: a systematic review

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Housing conditions in a neighborhood may be associated with physical activity among children and adolescents. This study aimed to evaluate the association between walkability and physical activity levels in children and adolescents. We conducted a systematic review, searching for articles published until April 2023 in the following databases: PubMed, SPORTDiscus, LILACS, Web of Science, Scopus, Embase, and Cochrane. It included studies that evaluated the association between walkability and physical activity among children and adolescents. The Newcastle Ottawa scale was used to assess the individual quality of the studies. In total, 35 studies were included, 5 longitudinal. The sample size ranged from 143 to 45,392 participants. Most of the studies found a positive association between walkability and physical activity, ~86%. Of the 19 studies that evaluated physical activity using objective methods (most of them accelerometers), 74% found positive results; for subjective methods, the percentage was 94%. Walkability was positively associated with higher levels of physical activity among children and adolescents.