The Influence of the Objective and Subjective Physical Neighbourhood Environment on the Physical Activity of Older Adults: A Case Study in the Malaysian Neighbourhoods of Johor Bahru

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors assess the physical neighbourhood environments (objective and subjective) to assist in the development of active ageing neighbourhood environment or urban planning housing policy guidelines in Malaysia. The topic is interesting, affecting to a social transformation in an ageing society. However, some issues should be improved prior to publication.

The abstract should be completed, including the main results obtained and the conclusions to be drawn.

The method is not clear, it is diluted in the manuscript. It is suggested a flow chart to better understand the used method.

The manuscript must flow the skills of scientific writing: from the general to the specific. Authors should better identify knowledge gaps on this topic, propose a method and then apply it to the case study. The manuscript is too focused on the development of the case study. This is evidenced in the conclusions section, focused very specifically on the case study. The sample (Malaysian neighbourhoods of Johor Bahru) is not significant to generalize the results globally.

Minor issues

Please check the text: lines 148-149

Figure B1. The legend text quality should be improved

Author Response

Corrections based on Reviewer 1 comments:

• The main results were added in the Abstract section: Lines 21 – 24
• Flow chart of the analytical method was included to give a clearer perspective to readers regarding the process of this study (including the procedures of research method): Lines 170 – 172
• Manuscript edited according to the flow of scientific writing; knowledge gaps were included in the Introduction section and modifications were made: Lines 86 – 173
• Justifications in the Conclusion section were added to point out the outcome of this study which is deemed as generalizable only to Malaysian neighbourhoods: Lines 522 – 527

Minor issues:

• Line 148-149: Lines 149 – 152 deleted due to repetitive paragraph which was already mentioned in lines 198 – 202
• Figure B1: Clearer figures in Appendix section were added
• The author did a correction under section 3.0 Data Collection for clearer structure and flow of the manuscript consistent with the analytical process of the research
• All legend in all Figures improved in the Appendix section

Reviewer 2 Report

Figure 1. Conceptual model of this study - Physical subjective, I think it should be added as well the visual connections 

Table 1. There information referring to the profile of the respondents (demographic attributes) should be discussed a little bit. Eg. Which is the behavior of people who have children and how they interact with the surroundings.

Line 50 - Which are the types of social and physical activities?

Line 74 - How does the environment influence elder people? (by aesthetical elements, functions and activities that they combine) references Eg. Neighbourhood Built Environment Influences on Physical Activity among Adults: A Systematized Review of Qualitative Evidence <Grazia Salvo, Bonnie M., Lashewicz ID, Patricia K., Doyle-Baker and Gavin R. McCormack

Line 149 - The phrase starts with a lowercase

Line 473 - Please insert an original taken image, not from google maps

Author Response

Corrections based on Reviewer 2 comments:

• Further explanation and literature reviews were added on the objective and subjective measures of the PNE: Lines 98 – 120
• For the visual connections suggested to be added in the list of physical subjective measures, the author applies only 12 measures directly based from the established NEWS-A questionnaire (Saelens, 2002; Saelens, 2003; Wan Abdul Manan & Lee, 2018) in this study. NEWS-A is a well-established scale to measure the subjective perception of neighbourhood walkability, which directly relates to the respondents level of physical activity. In this context, visual connections may be closely related to perceived neighbourhood aesthetics as one of the measures of NEWS-A.
• Further explanations on the profile of the respondents are added: Lines 220 – 226. The behaviour of the older people who are living as married couples or living with their working adult children will require further investigations on cross-tabulations between the demographic attributes with measures of PNEO and PNES which is not in line with the objective of this paper. The objective of this paper is to explore the relationships between PNEO and PNES which can influence the level of physical activity among young-old and older adults.
• Modifications were made for the types of social and physical activities: Lines 53 – 58
• New reference added in the literature review section 2.1: Line 113
• Line 149: Lines 149 – 152 deleted due to repetitive paragraph which was already mentioned in lines 198 – 202
• New original images are included in all Appendix sections
• The author changed the name of the sub-titles under Section 3 (3.1, 3.2, 3.3) to improve the manuscript flow based on the analytical method of the research in Figure 2.

Reviewer 3 Report

I would thank the authors for this study of olderly living and city planning.

In general, this is an intersting study which has acheived some useful results.

Mu suggestions:

Is it possible to enhance the literature review for the 'Introduction'. The current version may lack a proper literature searching accordign to the topics discussed. For concept model, it could be very confused between physical objective and physical subjective. For example, 'distance' could be physical objective; why relevant issues (connections, infrastructure, etc) were regarded as 'subjective'? It would be necessary to apply reference or present more details for these concept.

Author Response

Corrections based on Reviewer 3 comments:

• Modifications were made in the Introduction section for more understanding on the literature review: Lines 86 – 173
• Further explanation and literature reviews were added on the objective and subjective measures of the PNE: Lines 98 – 120

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The suggestions made by this reviewer have been successfully implemented in the text.