Variables and statistical analysis
deaths, Ewing
Of the 185 original study participants, our analysis included 184 participants who resided within Cook County, Illinois. We geocoded participants’ residential addresses using ArcGIS and appended census tract numbers which were used to merge with the neighborhood variables.The outcome variable was weight change between pre- and post-intervention (i.e., weight measurement taken eight months after the intervention). Individual-level measures included age (ranging between 55 and 81 years), sex (female vs. male), race (Black vs. all other groups), income (less than $40,000 vs. $40,000 or more), and education (high school or lower, some college, and college or higher). We also included the level of pre-intervention moderate to vigorous physical activity in minutes per day measured by the ActiGraph wGT3X triaxial accelerometer (Santos-Lozano et al., Two neighborhood exposure variables were developed: walkability and crime. We used the National Walkability Index developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which incorporates three indicators: intersection density (design), proximity to transit stops (distance), and mix of employment and household types (diversity) (Ewing & Cervero, Neighborhood crime was measured using homicide incident cases from the Cook County Medical Examiner’s archive, which includes all homicide deaths along with the address of each incident (Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office, 