Table 2.

Objective and self-reported land use/intensity characteristics around the home of participants included in analyses, Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), 2000–2002 (n=5529)

	n	%	Median	M	SD	Min	Max
Objective/derived measures (200m buffer unless noted)
Density (hundreds of people/hectare)	5529	—	0.41	1.53	2.55	0.00	15.20
% parcel area devoted to retail use
1st quartile (=0)	2269	41.04
2nd quartile (>0 and <1.43)	494	8.93
3rd quartile (≥1.43 and <10.61)	1384	25.04
4th quartile (≥10.61)	1382	25.00
Entropya
1st quartile (<0.022)	1383	25.01
2nd quartile (≥0.022 and <0.26)	1382	25.00
3rd quartile ≥0.26 and <0.54)	1382	25.00
4th quartile (≥0.54)	1382	25.00
Proportion of 400m buffer from home accessible via roads (0–1)	5529	—	0.51	0.47	0.15	0.00	0.73
Self-reported measures
Easy to walk to placesb
1=Strongly disagree	119	2.15
2=Disagree	683	12.35
3=Neutral (neither agree nor disagree)	317	5.73
4=Agree	3342	60.44
5=Strongly agree	1068	19.32
Stores within walking distance (20 min)b
1=Strongly disagree	274	4.96
2=Disagree	902	16.31
3=Neutral (neither agree nor disagree)	132	2.39
4=Agree	3186	57.62
5=Strongly agree	1035	18.72
Availability of institutional uses (schools, YMCA/YWCAs) within walking distance (20 min)
0=No	2093	37.85
1=Yes	3436	62.15

^aEntropy was calculated among residential, institutional, retail and office uses using the formula presented by Cervero and Kockelman.²⁴ For parcels with mixed uses, if they contained any retail uses they were considered as retail use. Those having any office uses (but no retail) were considered as office uses. Any institutional uses (but no retail or office uses) were considered institutional uses. Higher values represent a more even proportion of area devoted to each land use.

^bMeasured with a Likert-like scale ranging between 1 and 5, with 1=strongly agree and 5=strongly disagree. Scale shown in table and used in analyses is reversed so that higher values mean more support for walking, consistent with the objective measures.