In recent years, researchers have been advocating for the integration of ambulatory gait monitoring as a complementary approach to traditional fall risk assessments. However, current research relies on dedicated inertial sensors that are fixed on a specific body part. This limitation impacts the acceptance and adoption of such devices. Our study objective is twofold: (1) to propose a set of step-based fall risk parameters that can be obtained independently of the sensor placement by using a ubiquitous step detection method and (2) to evaluate their association with prospective falls.