Walking areas could help boost longevity

Researchers with Washington State University have found strong links between certain characteristics of neighborhood environments and the likelihood that residents will live to be 100.

In particular, researchers found a strong correlation between longevity and neighborhoods that are pedestrian-friendly with residents of diverse ages — or areas a lot like Pullman.

In fact, according to a map developed by those involved in the study, the region of Whitman County that contains Pullman has more centenarians than 97 percent of the rest of the state.

“Essentially, your neighborhood characteristics may contribute to how long you live — (particularly) diversity, walkability and also the neighborhood’s socioeconomic status,” said Ofer Amram, assistant professor in WSU’s Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. “Our angle was we’re looking at healthy environments and how it impacts health so we were really interested in that particular age group.”

Amram, who runs WSU’s Community Health and Spatial Epidemiology lab and helped lead the study, said researchers combed through existing mortality data from the Washington State Department of Health, which included the locations and ages of those who have died. Amram said they used these data to ascertain which areas of the state contained a high number of centenarians. He said they then worked to identify common characteristics these neighborhoods shared that might contribute to trends in longevity.

While others have studied centenarians, Amram said typically those researchers interview individuals in an attempt to better understand how they reached 100. He said WSU’s study is novel because it analyzes data at a much larger scale.

“Here we took essentially ‘big data’ and tried to analyze it that way — that’s our unique approach,” he said. “We tried to understand, using big data, what are those environmental correlates that impact longevity?”

Amram said there are other environmental factors that likely impact health including pollution, proximity to green space and local crime rates but these variables were not considered during this specific study. While this research is rarely equipped to describe causal relationships, he said the “accumulation of evidence on the association between neighborhood and health is overwhelming.”

“It kind of makes sense — I mean, if I’m more likely to go for a walk because I feel safer and I know I can walk in that neighborhood without worrying, I can get more exercise — my physical health and my mental health will improve,” he said. “Living in a neighborhood with low exposure to air pollution will directly impact my health as well — so we know, and there’s a lot of evidence on the different factors that impact our health in the places we live in.”

Scott Jackson can be reached at (208) 883-4636, or by email to sjackson@dnews.com.