A community-based approach to promoting walking in rural areas

Ecologic models are often recommended to promote physical activity, yet sparse data exist on their effectiveness. A quasi-experimental design examined changes in walking behavior in six rural intervention communities in the Missouri “bootheel” region and in six comparison communities in Arkansas and Tennessee. The communities ranged in population from 2399 to 17,642; interventions focused on adults aged ≥18 years. Interventions were developed with community input and included individually tailored newsletters, interpersonal activities that stressed social support, and community-wide events such as walk-a-thons. Primary outcomes were rates of walking-trail use, total number of minutes walked in the past week, and total minutes walked for exercise. Among persons who used trails at baseline (16.9% of the total population), 32.1% reported increases in physical activity since they began using the trail. From community-wide samples, two subgroups indicated a positive net change in rates of 7-day total walking: people with high school degrees or less and people living in households with annual incomes of ≤$20,000. However, no studied group showed a statistically significant net intervention effect. Although there was an increase in the rate of walking-trail use, a community-wide change in walking rates in rural communities was not documented. Results of this study should provide guidance for future projects.