Cross-validation of the factorial structure of the Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale (NEWS) and its abbreviated
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BioMed Central
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Cross-validation of the factorial structure of the Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale (NEWS) and its abbreviated form (NEWS-A) Ester Cerin*1, Terry L Conway2, Brian E Saelens3, Lawrence D Frank4 and James F Sallis5 Address: 1USDA/ARS Children's Nutrition Research Center, Baylor College of Medicine, 1100 Bates Street, Houston, Texas 77030, USA, 2Graduate School of Public Health, San Diego State University, San Diego, California, USA, 3Seattle Children's Hospital Research Center, University of Seattle, UW-CHI NE 74th St., Box 354920, Seattle, Washington 98101, USA, 4School of Community and Regional Planning, University of British Columbia, 231-1933 West Mall, Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z2 and 5Department of Psychology, San Diego State University, 3900 Fifth Avenue, San Diego, California 92103, USA Email: Ester Cerin* - [email protected]; Terry L Conway - [email protected]; Brian E Saelens - [email protected]; Lawrence D Frank - [email protected]; James F Sallis - [email protected] * Corresponding author
Published: 9 June 2009 International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity 2009, 6:32
doi:10.1186/1479-5868-6-32
Received: 31 December 2008 Accepted: 9 June 2009
This article is available from: http://www.ijbnpa.org/content/6/1/32 © 2009 Cerin et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract Background: The Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale (NEWS) and its abbreviated form (NEWS-A) assess perceived environmental attributes believed to influence physical activity. A multilevel confirmatory factor analysis (MCFA) conducted on a sample from Seattle, WA showed that, at the respondent level, the factor-analyzable items of the NEWS and NEWS-A measured 11 and 10 constructs of perceived neighborhood environment, respectively. At the census blockgroup (used by the US Census Bureau as a subunit of census tracts) level, the MCFA yielded five factors for both NEWS and NEWS-A. The aim of this study was to cross-validate the individual- and blockgroup-level measurement models of the NEWS and NEWS-A in a geographical location and population different from those used in the original validation study. Methods: A sample of 912 adults was recruited from 16 selected neighborhoods (116 census blockgroups) in the Baltimore, MD region. Neighborhoods were stratified according to their socio-economic status and transport-related walkability level measured using Geographic Information Systems. Participants self-completed the NEWS. MCFA was used to cross-validate the individual- and blockgroup-level measurement models of the NEWS and NEWS-A. Results: The data provided sufficient support for the factorial validity of the original individual-level measurement models, which consist
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