Making Chile More Pedestrian-Friendly for Older Persons: Expert Perspectives

ABSTRACT

Walking provides numerous benefits to older persons, but its practice is hindered by social factors and the built environment. This article aims to understand the factors that encourage or discourage older people’s walking behaviors, as well as the policies influencing those factors in Chile. It does so by reporting the analysis of twenty-five semi-structured interviews with Chilean policymakers and local leaders. The experts consistently represented walking as a beneficial activity for older persons that, nonetheless, occurs in adverse built environments. They asserted that the absence of older people in the public discussion and a top-down policy-making structure hamper its promotion.

KEYWORDS:

• Built environment
• Latin america
• older persons
• policy
• walking

Disclosure statement

The authors do not have conflicts of interest to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

 This work was supported by the Chilean National Agency for Research and Development (Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo) ANID Fondecyt Regular N° 1230127 and ANID Fondecyt Regular N° 1200527.