ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Extensive research has shown that the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically impacted the daily mobility of older adults. However, very little attention has been paid to the role of individual and built environmental factors in decline in older adults' daily mobility during the pandemic. METHODS: Based on a cohort survey of 741 older adults in Hong Kong, we conducted a one-way ANOVA to explore the differences in determinants (individual or environmental factors) of older adults' daily mobility between before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, multilevel linear regression was performed to examine how individual characteristics and built environment factors are associated with changes in older adults' daily mobility during the pandemic. RESULTS: Results show that the duration of active travel declined from 174.72 to 76.92 min per week, and that the public transport use frequency decreased from an average of 6.14 to 3.96 trips per week during the COVID-19 pandemic (before the rollout of vaccination programme). We also found residential density (p < 0.05) and the number of bus stop was negatively associated with the decline in their active travel (p < 0.01), while a higher destination mix was associated with more significant decrease in active travel (p < 0.01). A higher availability of recreational facilities in neighbourhoods was associated with a greater decrease in public transport use (p < 0.05). In addition, those who were older or having depressive symptoms, which are considered a vulnerable group, were negatively associated with decrease in their mobility (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Maintaining mobility and social interactions are crucial for older adults' health during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study found that individual and environmental factors differentially affected older adults' active travel and public transport use during the pandemic. Our findings contribute to understanding the COVID-19 impact on daily mobility in older adults and support more effective active travel promotion policies in the post-pandemic future.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Residence Characteristics , Humans , Aged , Pandemics , COVID-19/epidemiology , Built Environment , TransportationABSTRACT
Use of public transportation by regular commuters can help to reduce congestion and pollution in cities. Improving public transportation facilties may not be sufficient to improve its use and understanding the factors that determine use intention may help to improve public transport use specially for young adults who travel for work regularly. The current work aims to systematically assess public transport use intention for regular commuters below the age of 45 years, who may continue using or switch to public transport when facilities improve in Indian context post Covid-19 outbreak using a modified Theory of Planned Behavior framework. The work considers public transport improvement from two aspects, first, improvement in availability, which ensures less crowding, so that peoples' perceived safety improves from social distancing perspective and second, reduced travel times. It could be observed from this study that out of the demographic variables annual family income and education significantly affected use intentions but not family size and gender. It was observed in Indian context that social norms significantly affected public transport use intentions, but not an individual's attitude indicating that individuals are more concerned about social mandates over their personal preferences. Also, a person who has traveled in public transport mode in recent past was observed to have greater intent to continue using public transport than those who did not. Interestingly, people with higher income and education levels showed greater intent of public transport use. The observations from this study may be used for designing focused interventions to improve public transport use intentions in developing countries like India.