Improving walkability in Catalonia through a participatory and empowerment model

Promoting walking and walkable communities is a priority to reduce the burden of physical inactivity-related ill health. A participation-action project and empowerment model - composed by three phases - was used to design and evaluate the impact of tailored strategies to improve paths walkability in three Catalan middle-size towns. In phases I and II focus groups with stakeholders and citizens identified local needs and weaknesses towards promoting walkability and explored perceptions on how to improve it. In phase III, strategies addressing local walkability were developed, implemented and evaluated. Based on findings from focus groups, low-cost physical and communicative initiatives were implemented: clearing the paths; improving cleaning, the width and greenery of the paths; and doing communication campaigns through signalling the paths. A significant increase in path users (+5.95%) was observed after implementation. This is a valuable model for creating walkable communities tailored to specific contextual and cultural needs.