Virtual reality assessment of walking in a modifiable urban environment: a feasibility and acceptability study

Physical activity is known to be one of the most health-beneficial behaviors, and salutogenic design modifications to the built environment can facilitate increased physical activity. Unfortunately, it is not often clear in advance which environmental and urban design implementations will generate increases in activities such as walking, and which will have little impact or even reduce walking. The present study tested the feasibility and acceptability of a virtual reality (VR) model for pre-testing urban designs for their impact on walking. Using a wearable VR head-mounted display/computer, young adults (n = 40) walked freely through a large indoor gymnasium, simultaneously walking through a virtual model of an urban streetscape that was designed to be modifiable and allow for testing impacts on walking of various changes to the urban environment. The majority of participants found the experience to be acceptable: pleasant and nonaversive, and they walked freely through the VR model for approximately 20 min, on average. Using modifiable VR models to pre-test built-environment changes for their impacts on walking behavior appears to be a feasible and acceptable approach and worthy of continued research investigation.