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Countrywide natural experiment links built environment to physical activity
Tim Althoff1, Boris Ivanovic2, Abby C King3,4
1Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA. althoff@cs.washington.edu.
Nature
|August 13, 2025
Summary
Moving to a more walkable neighborhood significantly increases daily steps and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. This built environment change promotes health-enhancing physical activity, even across diverse demographics and sustained over time.
Area of Science:
- Public Health
- Urban Planning
- Behavioral Science
Background:
- Physical activity is crucial for health, yet most individuals do not meet recommended guidelines.
- Built environments, particularly walkable ones, show potential for increasing population-level physical activity.
- Previous research has yielded inconsistent findings on the built environment's impact on physical activity, often due to methodological limitations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the longitudinal impact of built environment walkability on objectively measured physical activity.
- To address limitations of prior studies by using a large cohort, objective measures, and longitudinal design.
- To investigate within-person behavioral changes following relocation to areas with differing walkability.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a large US cohort of 2,112,288 smartphone users with 248,266 days of objectively measured physical activity data.
- Analyzed 7,447 relocation events across 1,609 US cities, treating differing built environments as a natural experiment.
- Examined within-person changes in physical activity following moves between areas of varying walkability, controlling for residential self-selection.
Main Results:
- Increased walkability after relocation was associated with significant increases in physical activity, including an average of 1,100 additional daily steps when moving to a more walkable city.
- These physical activity gains were sustained for at least 3 months and observed across various genders, ages, and body mass index (BMI) categories.
- The increase in activity was primarily moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, which is linked to substantial health benefits.
Conclusions:
- The built environment directly influences health-enhancing physical activity levels.
- Relocation to more walkable environments leads to sustained increases in physical activity.
- Findings support urban planning policies aimed at improving walkability to promote public health.
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