People in Japan¡¯s most walkable municipalities log nearly twice as many daily steps as those in the least walkable ones, a study by a team of researchers at the University of Tokyo found.
The study, published Saturday in an international medical journal, found average step counts tended to be higher in municipalities ¡ª especially in urban areas ¡ª with built environments more conducive to walking.
The team analyzed 2023 data from Trima, a smartphone app that automatically records steps when users travel on foot. It examined about 1.5 million Trima users between the ages of 20 and 64 in 951 municipalities across the country, each with at least 100 users.
The researchers then measured ¡°walkability¡± on a five-point scale using indicators such as population density and the variety of public, commercial and other facilities, and tested how closely the scores tracked step counts.
Tokyo¡¯s Toshima Ward posted the highest daily average, at 7,750 steps, while Kobayashi, a city in Miyazaki Prefecture, logged the lowest, at 4,026.
Municipalities in the Tokyo and Osaka metropolitan areas tended to rank highly. Low step counts were more common in the eastern part of Hokkaido, the northern part of the Tohoku region?and southern Kyushu.
The study also found that municipalities with higher average step counts tended to score better on walkability.
Employed people walked more than those without jobs, with the gap especially wide in municipalities with the top walkability rating of five, suggesting factors beyond the built environment also shape how much people walk.
¡°We need measures that take into account both improvements in walkable environments and individuals¡¯ socioeconomic backgrounds,¡± said Masamitsu Kamada, an associate professor of health education at the University of Tokyo¡¯s graduate school.
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