Reliable and valid NEWS for Chinese seniors: measuring perceived neighborhood attributes related to walking

Table 2 Socio-demographic and area characteristics of study samples

Characteristic	Pilot study		Main study
	N	%	N	%
Participants
Gender	25	50	201	42
Male	25	50	283	58
Female
Age
65 - 74 years	28	56	324	67
75 - 84 years	18	36	150	31
85+ years	4	8	10	2
Educational attainment
Secondary or above	21	42	189	39
Primary	23	46	232	48
No formal education but can read and write	7	14	49	10
Illiterate	0	0	14	3
Study areas (districts)	HWHSES	LWHSES	HWLSES	LWLSES
Number of participants in pilot study	12	14	12	12
Number of participants in main study	120	120	124	120
District median monthly household income (HK$) ^b	25,000	20,000	12,200	13,000
% of owner occupiers in district ^b	62	62	42	50
Intersection density (intersections/km²)	165	15^a	197	12^a
Household density (number of households/km²)	5861	2514^a	12216	1979^a
Commercial/service destination density (units/km²) ^d	1643	72^a	1584	88^a

^a park land area excluded; ^b Data supplied by the Census and Statistics Department of Hong Kong SAR (2006); Computed using data from Centamap www.centamap.com; ^d Computed using data from the Quarterly Survey of Employment and Vacancies (Census and Statistics Department of Hong Kong SAR, March, 2006). Data on two categories of establishments relevant to residents' transport-related walking were included: (1) community, social and personal services; (2) Wholesale, retail and import and export trades, restaurants and hotels; HW = high walkable; HSES = high socio-economic status; LW = low walkable; LSES = low socio-economic status.

ISSN: 1479-5868