Drewnowski, A.; Arterburn, D.; Zane, J.; Aggarwal, A.; Gupta, S.; Hurvitz, P. M.; Moudon, A., V; Bobb, J.; Cook, A.; Lozano, P.; Rosenberg, D. (2019). The Moving to Health (M2H) Approach to Natural Experiment Research: A Paradigm Shift for Studies on Built Environment and Health. Ssm-population Health, 7.
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Abstract
Improving the built environment (BE) is viewed as one strategy to improve community diets and health. The present goal is to review the literature on the effects of BE on health, highlight its limitations, and explore the growing use of natural experiments in BE research, such as the advent of new supermarkets, revitalized parks, or new transportation systems. Based on recent studies on movers, a paradigm shift in built-environment health research may be imminent. Following the classic Moving to Opportunity study in the US, the present Moving to Health (M2H) strategy takes advantage of the fact that changing residential location can entail overnight changes in multiple BE variables. The necessary conditions for applying the M2H strategy to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) databases and to large longitudinal cohorts are outlined below. Also outlined are significant limitations of this approach, including the use of electronic medical records in lieu of survey data. The key research question is whether documented changes in BE exposure can be linked to changes in health outcomes in a causal manner. The use of geo-localized clinical information from regional health care systems should permit new insights into the social and environmental determinants of health.
Keywords
Body-mass Index; Neighborhood Food Environment; Residential Property-values; Cardiometabolic Risk-factors; New-york-city; Physical-activity; Obesity Rates; King County; Weight-gain; Land-use; Built Environment (be); Geographic Information Systems (gis); Electronic Medical Records; Natural Experiments; Obesity; Diabetes; Residential Mobility
Nkyekyer, Esi W.; Dannenberg, Andrew L. (2019). Use and Effectiveness of Health Impact Assessment in the Energy and Natural Resources Sector in the United States, 2007 – 2016. Impact Assessment & Project Appraisal, 37(1), 17 – 32.
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Abstract
Decisions made in the energy and natural resources sector can affect public health. This report reviews the characteristics and assesses the effectiveness of health impact assessments (HIAs) conducted in this sector. A total of 30 HIAs conducted in 14 states in the United States were identified using a targeted literature search. Five HIAs illustrative of the different source and sub-sector categories, and with identifiable impacts on decision-making processes were selected for review. An existing conceptual framework (Wismar) was used to assess the effectiveness of the five selected HIAs on decision-making related to non-renewable energy, renewable energy, mining, and energy conservation. The 30 HIAs were performed for a variety of projects and assessed health impacts ranging from metabolic disorders to community livability. Eight of the 30 reports were incorporated into environmental impact assessments. All five selected HIAs were generally effective and raised awareness of the health effects of the projects being assessed; four were directly effective and led to changes in final project decisions. Their variable effectiveness may be related to the extent of community engagement and consideration of equity issues, differences in the details and quality of monitoring and evaluation plans devised as part of the HIA process, and whether the outcomes of monitoring and evaluation are reported.
Keywords
Health Impact Assessment; Health Equity; Natural Resources; Environmental Impact Analysis; Power Resources; U.s. States; Energy Conservation; United States; Decision-making Effectiveness; Energy And Natural Resources; Wismar Framework; Horizon Oil-spill; Wind Turbine Noise; Quality-of-life; Environmental-health; Gas Development; Mental-health; Exposure; Vicinity; Hazards; Sleep; Environmental Assessment; Public Health; Metabolic Disorders; Renewable Energy; Monitoring; Decision Making; Evaluation; Environmental Impact; Community Involvement; Environmental Impact Assessment; Renewable Resources; Decisions; Impact Analysis; Mining; United States--us
Dunn, Peter T. (2020). Participatory Infrastructures: The Politics of Mobility Platforms. Urban Planning, 5(4), 335 – 346.
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Abstract
Much of everyday life in cities is now mediated by digital platforms, a mode of organization in which control is both distributed widely among participants and sharply delimited by the platform's constraints. This article uses examples of smartphone-based platforms for urban mobility to argue that platforms create new political arrangements of the city, intermediating the social processes of management and movement that characterize urban life. Its empirical basis is a study of user interfaces, data specifications, and algorithms used in the operation and regulation of ride-hailing services and bike-share systems. I focus on three aspects of urban politics affected by platforms: its location, its participants, and the types of conflict it addresses. First, the programming forums in which decisions are encoded in and distributed through platforms' core digital architecture are new sites of policy deliberation outside the more familiar arenas of city politics. Second, travelers have new opportunities to use platforms for travel on their own terms, but this expanded participation is circumscribed by interfaces that presuppose individual, transactional engagement rather than a participation attentive to a broader social and environmental context. Finally, digital systems show themselves to be well suited to enforcing quantifiable distributional goals, but struggle to resolve the more nuanced relational matters that constitute the politics of everyday city life. These illustrations suggest that digital tools for managing transportation are not only political products, but also reset the stage on which urban encounters play out.
Keywords
Construction; Users; Digital Geographies; Infrastructure; Participation; Platform Urbanism; Shared-use Mobility
Abu Ashour, Lamis; Dannenberg, Andrew L.; Shen, Qing; Fang, Xun; Wang, Yiyuan. (2021). Paratransit Services For People With Disabilities In The Seattle Region During The Covid-19 Pandemic: Lessons For Recovery Planning. Journal Of Transport & Health, 22.
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Abstract
Introduction: Along with all public transit services, paratransit services for people with disabilities experienced substantially reduced demand and an increased need to provide equitable services while protecting their clients and staff's safety during the COVID-19 pandemic. Paratransit services provide a lifeline for their clients' essential mobility needs, including access to medical appointments and grocery stores. In the absence of pre-existing pandemic response plans, examining transit agencies' responses to provide paratransit services during the pandemic can help inform planning for post-pandemic recovery and future disruptive events. Methods: In September 2020, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 15 decision-makers, planners, and drivers working for the primary transit agency in the Seattle region - King County Metro - and its paratransit contractors. Interview questions were designed to identify current services, policy gaps, and critical challenges for recovery planning and post-pandemic paratransit services. Interview transcripts were analyzed using NVivo software to obtain essential themes. Results: The interviewees provided insights about (1) paratransit service changes in response to the pandemic, (2) anticipated impacts of a returning demand on paratransit service efficiency, equity, and quality during the recovery period, and (3) innovative approaches for maintaining post-pandemic equitable paratransit services while balancing safety measures with available resources. Conclusions: Study findings suggest that paratransit service providers should consider (1) developing guidelines for future disruptive events, (2) examining alternative methods for food delivery to clients, (3) planning scenarios for delivering equitable services in the post-pandemic recovery period, and (4) increasing resilience possibly by establishing partnerships with transportation network companies.
Keywords
Paratransit; Mobility; Equity; Covid19 Pandemic; Scenario Planning; Recovery
Lin, Brenda B.; Ossola, Alessandro; Alberti, Marina; Andersson, Erik; Bai, Xuemei; Dobbs, Cynnamon; Elmqvist, Thomas; Evans, Karl L.; Frantzeskaki, Niki; Fuller, Richard A.; Gaston, Kevin J.; Haase, Dagmar; Jim, Chi Yung; Konijnendijk, Cecil; Nagendra, Harini; Niemela, Jari; Mcphearson, Timon; Moomaw, William R.; Parnell, Susan; Pataki, Diane; Ripple, William J.; Tan, Puay Yok. (2021). Integrating Solutions to Adapt Cities for Climate Change. Lancet Planetary Health, 5(7), E479 – E486.
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Abstract
Record climate extremes are reducing urban liveability, compounding inequality, and threatening infrastructure. Adaptation measures that integrate technological, nature-based, and social solutions can provide multiple co-benefits to address complex socioecological issues in cities while increasing resilience to potential impacts. However, there remain many challenges to developing and implementing integrated solutions. In this Viewpoint, we consider the value of integrating across the three solution sets, the challenges and potential enablers for integrating solution sets, and present examples of challenges and adopted solutions in three cities with different urban contexts and climates (Freiburg, Germany; Durban, South Africa; and Singapore). We conclude with a discussion of research directions and provide a road map to identify the actions that enable successful implementation of integrated climate solutions. We highlight the need for more systematic research that targets enabling environments for integration; achieving integrated solutions in different contexts to avoid maladaptation; simultaneously improving liveability, sustainability, and equality; and replicating via transfer and scale-up of local solutions. Cities in systematically disadvantaged countries (sometimes referred to as the Global South) are central to future urban development and must be prioritised. Helping decision makers and communities understand the potential opportunities associated with integrated solutions for climate change will encourage urgent and deliberate strides towards adapting cities to the dynamic climate reality.
Keywords
Urban; Resilience; Energy; Water; Transformations; Sustainability; Opportunities; Challenges; Mitigation; Knowledge
Alberti, Marina; Wang, Tianzhe. (2022). Detecting Patterns of Vertebrate Biodiversity Across the Multidimensional Urban Landscape. Ecology Letters, 25(4), 1027 – 1045.
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Abstract
Explicit characterisation of the complexity of urban landscapes is critical for understanding patterns of biodiversity and for detecting the underlying social and ecological processes that shape them. Urban environments exhibit variable heterogeneity and connectivity, influenced by different historical contingencies, that affect community assembly across scales. The multidimensional nature of urban disturbance and co-occurrence of multiple stressors can cause synergistic effects leading to nonlinear responses in populations and communities. Yet, current research design of urban ecology and evolutionary studies typically relies on simple representation of the parameter space that can be observed. Sampling approaches apply simple urban gradients such as linear transects in space or comparisons of urban sites across the urban mosaic accounting for a few variables. This rarely considers multiple dimensions and scales of biodiversity, and proves to be inadequate to explain observed patterns. We apply a multidimensional approach that integrates distinctive social, ecological and built characteristics of urban landscapes, representing variations along dimensions of heterogeneity, connectivity and historical contingency. Measuring species richness and beta diversity across 100 US metropolitan areas at the city and 1-km scales, we show that distinctive signatures of urban biodiversity can result from interactions between socioecological heterogeneity and connectivity, mediated by historical contingency.
Keywords
Urban Biodiversity; Biodiversity; Species Diversity; Urban Planning; Landscape Ecology; Metropolitan Areas; Beta Diversity; Multidimensional Landscape; Scaling; Spatial Scales; Species Richness; Urban Gradients; Vertebrate Species; Ecological-systems; Diversity; Urbanization; Conservation; Ecosystems; Heterogeneity; Connectivity; Population; Complexity; Evolution; Urban Environments; Synergistic Effect; Nonlinear Response; Research Design; Contingency; Urban Areas; Vertebrates
Abramson, Daniel. (2011). Transitional Property Rights and Local Developmental History in China. Urban Studies (sage Publications, Ltd.), 48(3), 553 – 568.
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Abstract
Among the societies that are moving from a centrally planned economy with weak property rights towards a market-oriented economy with stronger and more privatised property rights, China is undergoing an especially rapid and extensive urbanisation that obscures the diversity and relevance of local pre-Reform property arrangements. Official discourse emphasises the formalisation, clarification and, to some extent, the privatisation of property rights in the name of overall societal development and gradual integration with the global economy. In local informal, popular practice and discourse, however, the invocation of property rights reflects the continuing political relevance of both revolutionary and traditional notions of rights to urban space that challenge a unitary, linear view of the development process.
Keywords
Property Rights; History Of Economic Development; Central Economic Planning; Privatization; Urbanization; History; Social Policy; China
Jiao, Junfeng; Moudon, Anne V.; Ulmer, Jared; Hurvitz, Philip M.; Drewnowski, Adam. (2012). How to Identify Food Deserts: Measuring Physical and Economic Access to Supermarkets in King County, Washington. American Journal Of Public Health, 102(10), E32 – E39.
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Abstract
Objectives. We explored new ways to identify food deserts. Methods. We estimated physical and economic access to supermarkets for 5 low-income groups in Seattle-King County, Washington. We used geographic information system data to measure physical access: service areas around each supermarket were delineated by ability to walk, bicycle, ride transit, or drive within 10 minutes. We assessed economic access by stratifying supermarkets into low, medium, and high cost. Combining income and access criteria generated multiple ways to estimate food deserts. Results. The 5 low-income group definitions yielded total vulnerable populations ranging from 4% to 33% of the county's population. Almost all of the vulnerable populations lived within a 10-minute drive or bus ride of a low-or medium-cost supermarket. Yet at most 34% of the vulnerable populations could walk to any supermarket, and as few as 3% could walk to a low-cost supermarket. Conclusions. The criteria used to define low-income status and access to supermarkets greatly affect estimates of populations living in food deserts. Measures of access to food must include travel duration and mode and supermarket food costs.
Keywords
Neighborhood Characteristics; Store Availability; Accessibility; Consumption; Disparities; Environment; Location; Fruit; Pay
Zhao, Zhan; Zhao, Jinhua; Shen, Qing. (2013). Has Transportation Demand of Shanghai, China, Passed Its Peak Growth? Transportation Research Record, 2394, 85 – 92.
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Abstract
On the basis of four comprehensive transportation surveys in Shanghai, China, this study examined the latest trends in Shanghai's travel demand; investigated their social, economic, and spatial drivers; and compared the pace of travel demand growth in three periods: 1980s to early 1990s, early 1990s to mid-2000s, and mid-2000s to the present. The demand growth was relatively slow in the first period and then sped up in the second before it returned to a slower pace in the third period. As for trip purpose, Shanghai's travel is much more diversified than previously, with an increasing share of noncommuting trips (from 28% in 1995 to 46% in 2009). Spatially, travel demand is dispersed from the central district to peripheral districts because of urban expansion and decentralization and from Puxi (west of the Huangpu River) to Pudong (east of the Huangpu River) as a result of significant economic development of the Pudong New Area. Both spatial diffusion and purpose diversification favor the convenience and flexibility of private motor vehicles. Driven by rapid motorization, vehicle travel is growing at a much faster pace than person travel. Overall, the annual growth rate for travel demand in Shanghai reached its peak in 2004 for both person trips and vehicle trips. In absolute numbers, person trip growth has peaked, but vehicle trip growth has not. In response to the growing demand, especially rapid motorization, the local government has made tremendous investments in road infrastructure and public transit, and it has attempted to manage demand through vehicle ownership control.
Keywords
Urban; Impacts; Policy
Stewart, Orion Theodore; Moudon, Anne Vernez. (2014). Using the Built Environment to Oversample Walk, Transit, and Bicycle Travel. Transportation Research: Part D, 32, 15 – 23.
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Abstract
Characteristics of the built environment (BE) have been associated with walk, transit, and bicycle travel. These BE characteristics can be used by transportation researchers to oversample households from areas where walk, transit, or bicycle travel is more likely, resulting in more observations of these uncommon travel behaviors. Little guidance, however, is available on the effectiveness of such built environment oversampling strategies. This article presents measures that can be used to assess the effectiveness of BE oversampling strategies and inform future efforts to oversample households with uncommon travel behaviors. The measures are sensitivity and specificity, positive likelihood ratio (LR+), and positive predictive value (PPV). To illustrate these measures, they were calculated for 10 BE-defined oversampling strata applied post-hoc to a Seattle area household travel survey. Strata with an average block size of <10 acres within a 1/4 mile of household residences held the single greatest potential for oversampling households that walk, use transit, and/or bicycle. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords
Cycling; Transportation; Observation (scientific Method); Strategic Planning; Public Transit; Land Use; Bicycle; Household Travel Survey; Non-motorized Travel; Sampling; Screening Tests; Transit; Walk; Land-use; North-america; Renaissance; Policies; Choice; Trends