In a new paper just published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, our group examines neighborhood attractiveness and safety as predictors of adult BMI. Attractiveness indicators, including sidewalk cafés, landmark buildings, and street trees were linked to slightly lower BMI. However, our measures of neighborhood physical disorder and safety problems were not linked to higher BMI as hypothesized.
Our research showing an association between neighborhood walkability and active transport (walking or cycling) was just published online by the Journal of Urban Health. In collaboration with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene we analyzed data on the frequency of walking or biking ten blocks or more in the past month, data were collected as part of the 2003 New York City Community Health Survey. Higher neighborhood walkability was associated with higher odds of reporting any engagement in active transport in the past month and among those who did walk or cycle in the past month higher neighborhood walkability was associated with a higher frequency of walking or cycling trips. More details can be found in the neighborhood walkability section of the BEH web site.
We are working on analyses of the distribution of restaurants, pizza outlets and fast food outlets across New York City and whether neighborhood access to restaurants influences the eating patterns of New Yorkers. Below are maps for this project showing the 2005 Dunn and Bradstreet business listing data for these outlet types with kernel density estimates of neighborhood access.
Monday at the American Thoracic Society annual conference Gina Lovasi was presented the Bates award for Promising Investigation in the Field of Environmental and Occupational Health.
She received the award for an abstract reporting on our work studying exposure to the urban tree canopy and childhood asthma and allergy. For this research we used New York City LiDAR data to measure the urban forest canopy in exquisite detail throughout the city. The image below shows an aerial photo next to the corresponding map of the tree canopy generated from the LiDAR data.
Built Environment and Health (BEH) Research Group is an interdisciplinary program of research at Columbia University. Led by epidemiologist Andrew Rundle, BEH uses spatial data to examine the impact of the built environment, including land use, public transit, and housing on physical activity, diet, obesity, and other aspects of health. The group has investigators from public health, social science, and urban planning with a research staff based at the Institute of Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP).
Built Environment and Health Research Group 