The reflection of the fear of falls and risk of falling in walking activity spaces of older adults in various urban environments

Participation of older adults in daily activities has a major positive impact on health and contributes to a sense of accomplishment, satisfaction, self-efficacy, and well-being. Walking is considered to be one of the most influential activities promoting health and active living. Older adults are particularly vulnerable to their immediate local environment where age- related declined capabilities combined with barriers in the home neighborhood pose a risk of falling and fear of falls. Most research focusing on the built environment role in incidents of older adults' outdoor falls and fear of falls is focused on identifying the environmental features' risk factors. Effort is made to develop audit checklist tools to assess out-door falls risk. In contrast, this study focuses on the manifestation of fear of falls in older adults' walking activity spaces. We identify spatial walking patterns of outdoor daily activities in public urban spaces and examine the relations between fear of falls, risk of falling status, previous occurrence of fall incidents and number of medical diagnoses and walking activity spaces among older adults in different urban environments.