Report

Research increasingly shows a link between physical activity and the "built" environment -- buildings, roads, parks, and other structures that physically define a community -- but more research is needed to assess whether the built environment affects people's actual levels of physical activity, says a new report from the National Academies' Transportation Research Board and Institute of Medicine.

This additional research could help clarify whether and to what extent the physical environment where Americans live and work contributes to the fact that more than half of the U.S. adult population falls short of meeting the U.S. surgeon general's guidelines for physical activity, said the committee that wrote the report.