UC San Diego

Background

Built environment approaches to promoting physical activity can provide economic value to communities. How best to assess this value is uncertain. This study engaged experts to identify a set of key economic indicators useful for evaluation, research, and public health practice.

Methods

Using a modified Delphi process, a multidisciplinary group of experts participated in (1) one of 5 discussion groups (n = 21 experts), (2) a 2-day facilitated workshop (n = 19 experts), and/or (3) online surveys (n = 16 experts).

Results

Experts identified 73 economic indicators, then used a 5-point scale to rate them on 3 properties: measurement quality, feasibility of use by a community, and influence on community decision making. Twenty-four indicators were highly rated (≥3.9 on all properties). The 10 highest-rated "key" indicators were walkability score, residential vacancy rate, housing affordability, property tax revenue, retail sales per square foot, number of small businesses, vehicle miles traveled per capita, employment, air quality, and life expectancy.

Conclusion

This study identified key economic indicators that could characterize the economic value of built environment approaches to promoting physical activity. Additional work could demonstrate the validity, feasibility, and usefulness of these key indicators, in particular to inform decisions about community design.