Establishing Normative Height-Normalized Gait Speed in Indian Young Adults: Influence of Indoor and Outdoor Environments

Objective: The Primary objective is to establish normative data for height-normalised gait speed in healthy younger adults aged 18-25. The secondary objective is to assess the impact of environmental conditions on gait speed. Methods: A cross‐sectional observational study was conducted in Mysuru using convenience sampling. A total of 316 healthy participants underwent the 10-meter walk test in both indoor and outdoor settings. Descriptive statistics were used to derive normative values, while paired and independent t-tests compared indoor versus outdoor speeds and examined gender differences, respectively. Results: Indoor gait speed ranged from 0.85 to 0.92 m/sec, while outdoor gait speed ranged from 0.91 to 0.96 m/sec. Gait speed was significantly higher outdoors (p0.005) Conclusion: This study establishes height-normalized gait speed for young Indian adults in outdoor and indoor environments and shows that environmental conditions significantly influence gait speed.