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Comparative Study
. 2019 Sep 19;16(18):3486.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph16183486.

The Role of Built Environment on Health of Older Adults in Korea: Obesity and Gender Differences

Mi Namgung  1 , B Elizabeth Mercado Gonzalez  2 , Seungwoo Park  3
Affiliations
Comparative Study

The Role of Built Environment on Health of Older Adults in Korea: Obesity and Gender Differences

Mi Namgung et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

This study examines the effect of the built environment on obesity in older adults, taking into consideration gender difference. In this regard, we ask two questions: (1) How does the built environment affect obesity in older adults? (2) Is there a gender difference in the effect of the built environment? To examine the research questions, this study uses the 2015 Korean National Health and Nutrition Survey and geographically weighted regression (GWR) analysis. The empirical analyses show that environmental factors have stronger effects on local obesity rates for older men than for older women, which indicates a gender difference in obesity. Based on these findings, we suggest that public health policies for obesity should consider the built environment as well as gender difference.

Keywords: Korea; built environment; gender difference; obesity; spatial analysis.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
GWR model performance for older women and men: distribution of local R2 values.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Localities with statistically significant local coefficients in GWR.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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