Synergic effects of meteorological factors on urban form-outdoor exercise relationship: A study with crowdsourced data

Physical activity could improve individual health and reduce the risk of all-cause mortality. However, for health-promoting urban environments, some questions require further exploration. For instance, how urban form facilitates or constrains outdoor activities? How local meteorology modulates the urban form-outdoor exercise relationship? In this study, we apply a crowdsourced database, Strava, for outdoor exercisers in Atlanta, Georgia, to investigate the synergic effects of meteorological factors on the urban form-outdoor exercise relationship by developing two groups of models; one considers wind factors, and the other does not. The results show that the wind-related group outperforms their counterparts, especially for commute exercisers (R² = 0.77 vs. R² = 0.39), males (R² = 0.51 vs. R² = 0.39), and age groups of 13–19 (R² = 0.61 vs. R² = 0.25), demonstrating that incorporating local meteorological factors into urban form modeling can better reveal outdoor activity patterns. Besides, the urban form could impact the location preferences of individual exercisers, and such impact varies among different subgroups (e.g., seniors consider convenience, safety, and comfort more than young exercisers do). In addition, places become attractive for outdoor exercisers only when multiple urban form requirements are met (e.g., accessibility to public parks and proximity to residential communities). Finally, according to the non-monotonic and marginal effects, the impacts of urban form and meteorological factors on trip volume are only evident within specific ranges. These findings could help decision-makers make informed plans to promote more active and healthier communities.