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There is increased awareness of the role of the urban landscape in promoting walking to counter the negative health and wellbeing impacts of age-related immobility. Consideration of neighbourhood design is particularly relevant in the context of local urban regeneration projects, which are designed to have positive health and wellbeing outcomes. However, few studies explicitly investigate how the environment influences walking and wellbeing for older adults living in deprived urban areas.

There are strong conceptual and empirical links between walking, the urban environment and mental wellbeing. Many studies have separately demonstrated pairwise associations between all three components. In this paper we address these three concepts empirically, using structural equation modelling to explore walking as a mediator between the perceived social and built environments and mental wellbeing for older …