2.4. Perceived Built Environment Attributes

Perceived built environment attributes were evaluated using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire Environmental Module (IPAQ-E). The IPAQ-E contains 17 questions—7 core items, 4 recommended items, and 6 optional items. Consistent with several previous studies [9,10,11,12], we used the following 11 items, including both core and recommended items: residential density, access to shops, access to public transport, presence of sidewalks, presence of bike lanes, access to recreational facilities, crime safety, traffic safety, social environment, aesthetics, and household motor vehicles. These items refer to a surrounding built environment that a person could reach by walking 10 to 15 min from his or her residence. Nine of the 11 items (excluding residential density and household motor vehicles) include statements explaining neighborhood features considered related to physical activity that are responded to with four response options: strongly disagree, somewhat disagree, somewhat agree, and strongly agree. Responses for these environmental variables were classified into two categories: agreement (strongly agree and somewhat agree) or disagreement (somewhat disagree and strongly disagree). In terms of residential density, the choice of “detached single-family residences” formed a category indicating low residential density, whereas other forms of residence were included in a category indicating high residential density. Responses to the number of household motor vehicles were categorized as “none” and “one or more”.