Formative work

Although we are recommending a core set of items for assessment, we realize that there will be many different issues of importance in each country. We suggest when developing new items that you conduct some formative research through interviews and focus groups from purposive samples.

For example in Australia the PLACE study investigated environmental issues that differed from the US. IPEN members could conduct a similar pilot study in their country. For more details please see this article:

Eva Leslie Brian Saelens, Lawrence Frank, Neville Owen, Adrian Bauman, Neil Coffee, Graeme Hugo. Residents’ perceptions of walkability attributes in objectively different neighbourhoods: a pilot study Health & Place In press Read Paper

In the US we are also developing a version of the NEWS for youth (adolescents and parents of younger children). We have been conducting telephone and face to face interviews to ascertain the places where children play, what elements of the environment affect their activity, and what rules their parents try to enforce. More details of this study will follow shortly. If you are considering a study of children please contact us directly (jkerr@projects.sdsu.edu).