Relationships of the multi-scale built environment with active commuting, body mass index, and life satisfaction in China: A GSEM-based analysis

The effects of the built environment (BE) on modes of transport have been extensively evaluated in the literature with a primary focus on the neighborhood-level BE. Moreover, it has been revealed that transportation modes are associated with an individual's life choices and the resulting quality of life (QoL). However, the effects of the BE on the transportation, which in turn affects the QoL, remain largely unknown. This is especially true considering that the BE can be evaluated at different spatial scales, which further involves both observed and unobserved clustering effects. Based on data from 8,862 respondents living in 97 Chinese cities (collected in 2014), this study builds a generalized structural equation model (GSEM) to explore the complex relationships between both neighborhoodand city-level BE attributes, active commuting, body mass index (BMI), and life satisfaction within a unified analysis framework. The results show that: (1) GSEM significantly outperforms the conventional structural equation model; (2) life satisfaction is related to both active commuting modes and BMI, while the active commuting time is related to BMI; and (3) the city-level BE has a much stronger relevance to active commuting time, BMI, and life satisfaction, but a weaker relevance to active commuting modes, than the neighborhood-level BE.