The purpose of this Community-Based Participatory Research project is to implement, evaluate, and disseminate the immediate and 2-year effects of walking, bicycling, and community gardening approaches to enhancing physically active lifestyles among urban-dwelling older adults and low-income ethnic minorities within a conducive, appealing built environment. A strong emphasis on the importance of physical activity as it impacts current and future health across the lifetime pervades research journals and lay magazines, nationally-based physical activity programs for all ages, health education programs for the public from a variety of sources, and public service announcements. Study results are expected to identify effective strategies and efficient programs to foster physically active lifestyles in sustainable community-based programs that can be readily adopted by other cities across the nation.
