Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2014 Nov 13:14:1165.
doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-14-1165.

The Wisconsin Assessment of the Social and Built Environment (WASABE): a multi-dimensional objective audit instrument for examining neighborhood effects on health

Kristen C Malecki  1 , Corinne D Engelman, Paul E Peppard, F Javier Nieto, Maggie L Grabow, Milena Bernardinello, Erin Bailey, Andrew J Bersch, Matthew C Walsh, Justin Y Lo, Ana Martinez-Donate
Affiliations

The Wisconsin Assessment of the Social and Built Environment (WASABE): a multi-dimensional objective audit instrument for examining neighborhood effects on health

Kristen C Malecki et al. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: Growing evidence suggests that mixed methods approaches to measuring neighborhood effects on health are needed. The Wisconsin Assessment of the Social and Built Environment (WASABE) is an objective audit tool designed as an addition to a statewide household-based health examination survey, the Survey of the Health of Wisconsin (SHOW), to objectively measure participant's neighborhoods.

Methods: This paper describes the development and implementation of the WASABE and examines the instrument's ability to capture a range of social and built environment features in urban and rural communities. A systematic literature review and formative research were used to create the tool. Inter-rater reliability parameters across items were calculated. Prevalence and density of features were estimated for strata formed according to several sociodemographic and urbanicity factors.

Results: The tool is highly reliable with over 81% of 115 derived items having percent agreement above 95%. It captured variance in neighborhood features in for a diverse sample of SHOW participants. Sidewalk density in neighborhoods surrounding households of participants living at less than 100% of the poverty level was 67% (95% confidence interval, 55-80%) compared to 34% (25-44%) for those living at greater than 400% of the poverty level. Walking and biking trails were present in 29% (19-39%) of participant buffer in urban areas compared to only 7% (2-12%) in rural communities. Significant environmental differences were also observed for white versus non-white, high versus low income, and college graduates versus individuals with lower level of education.

Conclusions: The WASABE has strong inter-rater reliability and validity properties. It builds on previous work to provide a rigorous and standardized method for systematically gathering objective built and social environmental data in a number of geographic settings. Findings illustrate the complex milieu of built environment features found in participants neighborhoods and have relevance for future research, policy, and community engagement purposes.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Example of a 400-meter non-Euclidian street-network buffer for measuring neighborhood environment around select- participant household.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Penedo FJ, Dahn JR. Exercise and well-being: a review of mental and physical health benefits associated with physical activity. Curr Opin Psychiatry. 2005;18:189–193. doi: 10.1097/00001504-200503000-00013. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Sallis JF, Frank LD, Robert P, Conway TL, Cain KL, Saelens BE, Slymen DJ, Chapman JE, Kerr J. Neighborhood built environment and income: Examining multiple health outcomes. Soc Sci Med. 2009;68:1285–1293. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.01.017. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Stronegger WJ, Titze S, Oja P. Perceived characteristics of the neighborhood and its association with physical activity behavior and self-rated health. Health Place. 2010;16:736–743. doi: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2010.03.005. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Galea S, Ahern J, Rudenstine S, Wallace Z, Vlahov D. Urban built environment and depression: a multilevel analysis. J Epidemiol Community Health. 2005;59(10):822–827. doi: 10.1136/jech.2005.033084. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Carroll-Scott A, Gilstad-Hayden K, Rosenthal L, Peters SM, McCaslin C, Joyce R, Ickovics JR. Disentangling neighborhood contextual associations with child body mass index, diet, and physical activity: The role of built, socioeconomic, and social environments. Soc Sci Med. 1982;2013:1–9. - PMC - PubMed
Pre-publication history
    1. The pre-publication history for this paper can be accessed here: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/14/1165/prepub

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources