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Health Impact Assessment: Considering Health in Transportation Decision Making in the United States

Wier, Megan L.; Schwartz, Michael; Dannenberg, Andrew L. (2015). Health Impact Assessment: Considering Health in Transportation Decision Making in the United States. TR News (0738-6826), 299, 11 – 16.

Abstract

The article talks about Health Impact Assessment (HIA) when it comes to transportation decision making in the U.S. and discusses the Collaboration between public health professionals and transportation in order to execute HIA.

Keywords

Health Impact Assessment; Public Health -- United States

Secondary GIS Built Environment Data for Health Research: Guidance for Data Development

Stewart, Orion T.; Carlos, Heather A.; Lee, Chanam; Berke, Ethan M.; Hurvitz, Philip M.; Li, Li; Moudon, Anne Vernez; Doescher, Mark P. (2016). Secondary GIS Built Environment Data for Health Research: Guidance for Data Development. Journal Of Transport & Health, 3(4), 529 – 539.

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Abstract

Built environment (BE) data in geographic information system (GIS) format are increasingly available from public agencies and private providers. These data can provide objective, low-cost BE data over large regions and are often used in public health research and surveillance. Yet challenges exist in repurposing GIS data for health research. The GIS data do not always capture desired constructs; the data can be of varying quality and completeness; and the data definitions, structures, and spatial representations are often inconsistent across sources. Using the Small Town Walkability study as an illustration, we describe (a) the range of BE characteristics measurable in a GIS that may be associated with active living, (b) the availability of these data across nine U.S. small towns, (c) inconsistencies in the GIS BE data that were available, and (d) strategies for developing accurate, complete, and consistent GIS BE data appropriate for research. Based on a conceptual framework and existing literature, objectively measurable characteristics of the BE potentially related to active living were classified under nine domains: generalized land uses, morphology, density, destinations, transportation system, traffic conditions, neighborhood behavioral conditions, economic environment, and regional location. At least some secondary GIS data were available across all nine towns for seven of the 9 BE domains. Data representing high-resolution or behavioral aspects of the BE were often not available. Available GIS BE data - especially tax parcel data often contained varying attributes and levels of detail across sources. When GIS BE data were available from multiple sources, the accuracy, completeness, and consistency of the data could be reasonable ensured for use in research. But this required careful attention to the definition and spatial representation of the BE characteristic of interest. Manipulation of the secondary source data was often required, which was facilitated through protocols. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords

Geographic Information-systems; Physical-activity; Land-use; Walking; Neighborhood; Associations; Density; Design; Adults; Travel; Active Travel; Pedestrian; Urban Design; Community Health; Rural

Wearable Sensors For Monitoring On-duty And Off-duty Worker Physiological Status And Activities In Construction.

Lee, Wonil; Lin, Ken-yu; Seto, Edmund; Migliaccio, Giovanni C. (2017). Wearable Sensors For Monitoring On-duty And Off-duty Worker Physiological Status And Activities In Construction. Automation In Construction, 83, 341 – 353.

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Abstract

Total Worker Health (R) (TWH) integrates occupational health and safety with the promotion of workers' off-duty wellbeing. Wearable sensors (e.g., activity trackers and physiological monitors) have facilitated personalized objective measurement of workers' health and wellbeing. Furthermore, the TWH concept is relevant to construction workers, especially roofing workers, as they encounter high on-duty health and safety risks and have poor off-duty lifestyles. This study examined the reliability and usability of wearable sensors for monitoring roofing workers' on-duty and off-duty activities. The results demonstrated the usability of these sensors and recommended a data collection period of three consecutive days for obtaining an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.75 for heart rate, energy expenditure, metabolic equivalents, and sleep efficiency. The participants exhibited significant variations in their physical responses, health statuses, and safety behaviors. Moreover, several issues were identified in the application of wearable sensors to TWH evaluations for construction workers including roofers.

Keywords

Construction Workers; Wearable Technology; Employee Health Promotion; Roofing Industry; Body Sensor Networks; Health; Construction Safety And Health; Usability Study; Wearable Sensors; Worker Monitoring; Worker Physiology; Construction Industry; Ergonomics; Occupational Health; Occupational Safety; Patient Monitoring; Personnel; Roofs; Sleep; Off-duty Worker Physiological Status; Total Worker Health®; Off-duty Wellbeing; Activity Trackers; Physiological Monitors; Twh Concept; On-duty Health; Safety Risks; Off-duty Lifestyles; Monitoring Roofing Workers; Off-duty Activities; Health Statuses; Heart-rate-variability; Energy-expenditure; Health Protection; Physical-activity; Validity; Reliability; Validation; Promotion; Productivity; Actigraph

Temporal Effect of Construction Workforce Physical Strain on Diminishing Marginal Productivity at the Task Level

Lee, Wonil; Migliaccio, Giovanni C. (2018). Temporal Effect of Construction Workforce Physical Strain on Diminishing Marginal Productivity at the Task Level. Journal Of Construction Engineering And Management, 144(9).

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Abstract

Physiological status and environmental stressors are known to influence workforce performance at the individual worker level. A previous study, which conducted a cross-sectional comparison in repetitive material-handling construction activities, suggested that a U-shaped relationship existed between physical strain and productivity at the group level. This research revisits those findings to further investigate the U-curve relationship between physical strain and productivity at the group level and validate the concept of diminishing marginal productivity. Heart rates were measured as an indicator of subjects' physical strain, whereas task productivity was estimated by work sampling. Eighty person-hour data were converted into panel data sets by dividing each subject's 4-h experimental data into 5-min intervals. These data sets were subsequently used to evaluate the effects of time on physical strain and productivity with 5-min lags. The study found a U-curve relationship between physical strain and task-level productivity at the group level while controlling for individual characteristics. The U-shape relationship was constant in the low-performance and high-performance groups, although the degrees of the polynomials differed. Productive workers will remain more productive than low-productive workers with increased physical strain.

Keywords

Construction Industry; Industrial Psychology; Labour Resources; Occupational Health; Polynomials; Productivity; Physiological Status; Environmental Stressors; U-shaped Relationship; Productive Workers; Polynomials Degree; Diminishing Marginal Productivity; Construction Workforce Physical Strain; Labor Productivity; Scientific Management; Shift Work; Performance; Model; Taylorism; Burnout; Design; Impact; Safety; Construction Productivity; Labor And Personal Issue; Work Physiology; Physical Strain

A Mixed VR and Physical Framework to Evaluate Impacts of Virtual Legs and Elevated Narrow Working Space on Construction Workers Gait Pattern

Habibnezhad, M.; Puckett, J.; Fardhosseini, M.S.; Pratama, L.A. (2019). A Mixed VR and Physical Framework to Evaluate Impacts of Virtual Legs and Elevated Narrow Working Space on Construction Workers Gait Pattern. Arxiv, 7 pp.

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Abstract

It is difficult to conduct training and evaluate workers' postural performance by using the actual job site environment due to safety concerns. Virtual reality (VR) provides an alternative to create immersive working environments without significant safety concerns. Working on elevated surfaces is a dangerous scenario, which may lead to gait and postural instability and, consequently, a serious fall. Previous studies showed that VR is a promising tool for measuring the impact of height on the postural sway. However, most of these studies used the treadmill as the walking locomotion apparatus in a virtual environment (VE). This paper was focused on natural walking locomotion to reduce the inherent postural perturbations of VR devices. To investigate the impact of virtual height on gait characteristics and keep the level of realism and feeling of presence at their highest, we enhanced the first-person-character model with "virtual legs". Afterward, we investigated its effect on the gait parameters of the participants with and without the presence of height. To that end, twelve healthy adults were asked to walk on a virtual loop path once at the ground level and once at the 17th floor of an unfinished structure. By quantitatively comparing the participants' gait pattern results, we observed a decrease in the stride length and increase in the gait duration of the participants exposed to height. At the ground level, the use of the enhanced model reduced participants' average stride length and height. The results of this study help us understand users' behaviors when they were exposed to elevated surfaces and establish a firm ground for gait stability analysis for the future height-related VR studies. We expect this developed VR platform can generate reliable results of VR application in more construction safety studies.

Keywords

Civil Engineering Computing; Construction Industry; Gait Analysis; Medical Computing; Occupational Safety; Virtual Reality; Construction Safety Studies; Mixed Vr; Virtual Legs; Construction Workers Gait Pattern; Immersive Working Environments; Postural Instability; Serious Fall; Postural Sway; Walking Locomotion Apparatus; Natural Walking Locomotion; Inherent Postural Perturbations; Vr Devices; Virtual Height; First-person-character Model; Gait Parameters; Virtual Loop Path; Stride Length; Gait Duration; Gait Stability Analysis; Safety Concerns; Vr Platform; Height-related Vr Studies

Interpretations of Aftershock Advice and Probabilities After the 2013 Cook Strait Earthquakes, Aotearoa New Zealand

Doyle, Emma E. H.; McClure, John; Potter, Sally H.; Lindell, Michael K.; Becker, Julia S.; Fraser, Stuart A.; Johnston, David M. (2020). Interpretations of Aftershock Advice and Probabilities After the 2013 Cook Strait Earthquakes, Aotearoa New Zealand. International Journal Of Disaster Risk Reduction, 49.

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Abstract

Probabilistic statements can be a valuable tool for natural hazard risk communication, including forecasts. However, individuals often have a poor understanding of such probabilistic forecasts caused by them distorting their interpretations of event likelihoods towards the end of the time window and discounting the risk today. We investigated the use of an 'anchoring' time statement to mitigate this bias via an opportunistic survey run after the 2013 Cook Strait earthquakes, near Wellington, New Zealand. Participants rated their interpretations of likelihoods for an immediate aftershock forecast, and for an earthquake in the future. We explored the influence of aftershock and information concern, emotions and felt shaking, gender and education, as well as preparedness actions. The anchoring time window statement mitigated the skew in interpretations for the short (24 h to within 1 week) aftershock forecast statement. However, the skew still existed for the longer future earthquake forecast (7 days to within 1 year). We also found that heightened sensory experience (felt shaking) or emotional reactions (nervousness, fear, alertness) during the earthquakes was associated with an increase in the perceived likelihoods of future events. Gender was found to significantly influence results, with females rating higher levels of information concern and anxiety, and recording higher perceived likelihoods for the immediate aftershock forecast. Findings, including the importance of 'anchoring' time windows within a forecast to encourage immediate preparedness actions, support recommendations for effective crafting of these forecasts and warnings.

Keywords

False Discovery Rate; Risk Perceptions; Natural Hazards; Communication; Uncertainty; Model; Preparedness; Information; Experiences; Intentions; Likelihood; Probabilities; Forecasts; Earthquakes; Emotions; Concern; Gender; Actions

Case Study to Evaluate Work-Zone Safety Technologies in Highway Construction

Nnaji, Chukwuma; Karakhan, Ali A.; Gambatese, John; Lee, Hyun Woo. (2020). Case Study to Evaluate Work-Zone Safety Technologies in Highway Construction. Practice Periodical On Structural Design And Construction, 25(3).

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Abstract

The construction industry is known for its conservative approach toward adopting new, emerging technologies. This conservative approach for adopting technology is caused by multiple factors including the lack of adequate resources to guide construction practitioners in the process of evaluating whether a construction firm should adopt a certain technology or not. Previous studies have already proposed rigorous protocols for evaluating work-zone technologies, but the implementation of such protocols is still unclear to many construction practitioners. The objective of this study is to provide a case study example of how evaluation protocols can be used in practice to determine whether a firm should adopt a certain work-zone technology. The case study focused on assessing the usefulness of commercially available work-zone intrusion alert technologies (WZIATs). The results of the evaluation revealed that some WZIATs could be more attractive to construction organizations and agencies in terms of providing louder alarms, being more mobile, and allowing a higher transmission range. The case study example discussed in this study is expected to provide invaluable practical information to practitioners in the construction industry interested in evaluating and adopting emerging technologies.

Keywords

Construction Industry; Mobile Radio; Occupational Safety; Road Building; Road Safety; Highway Construction; Conservative Approach; Construction Practitioners; Construction Firm; Rigorous Protocols; Work-zone Technology; Case Study Example; Evaluation Protocols; Commercially Available Work-zone Intrusion Alert Technologies; Construction Organizations; Evaluate Work-zone Safety Technologies; Speed; Signs; Work Zone; Safety Technology; Intrusion Alert; Evaluation Protocol

Autonomous People: Identity, Agency, and Automated Driving

Dunn, Peter T. (2021). Autonomous People: Identity, Agency, and Automated Driving. Journal Of Urban Technology, 28(3-4), 25 – 44.

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Abstract

The prevailing discourse on autonomous vehicles (AVs) has not yet developed a sophisticated conceptualization of autonomy and has given insufficient attention to the autonomy of people. In response, this article shifts our attention away from the AV's autonomy and towards that of its user. Autonomy is conceived here as the socially and materially situated capacity of an individual to identify and act on one's own values and desires, a capacity that is desirable for collective political life. This definition is drawn selectively from a survey of thought illustrating the richness of this concept. I then examine how studies of transportation have already made use of certain themes of autonomy in understanding mobility practices beyond dominant utilitarian models. This sets up an examination of AVs, where the existing literature tends to use a narrow conceptualization of autonomy. I then briefly examine two examples of unsettled questions in AV development, discretionary user controls and shared ride systems, in light of autonomy. The goal of this article is both to show how autonomy can be productive in understanding mobility practices, and to argue for personal autonomy as a normative value worth pursuing in the technical, political, and social development of automated mobility systems.

Keywords

Car Use; Vehicles; Travel; Accidents; Policy; Autonomy; Agency; Autonomous Vehicles; Mobility

Coping on the Inside: Design for Therapeutic Incarceration Interventions – A Case Study

Wagenfeld, Amy; Winterbottom, Daniel. (2021). Coping on the Inside: Design for Therapeutic Incarceration Interventions – A Case Study. Work-a Journal Of Prevention Assessment & Rehabilitation, 68(1), 97 – 106.

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Abstract

BACKGROUND: Adjusting to incarceration is traumatic. An under-utilized strategy understood to buffer and counteract the negative impacts of incarceration are nature interventions. OBJECTIVE: Outcomes of an interdisciplinary design studio course focused on developing masterplans for a women's prison in the Pacific Northwest (US) are presented. Course objectives included comprehension and application of therapeutic and culturally expressive design principles to increase the benefits of environmental design within a carceral setting; collaboration, developing a deeper, more representative understanding of how design processes can improve the lives of marginalized populations; and enhancing design skills, including at masterplan and schematic scale using an iterative process and reflection. METHODS: A landscape architect, occupational therapist, and architect teaching team, with support from architects and justice specialists facilitated an elective design studio course to redesign the Washington Corrections Center for Women campus. RESULTS: In a ten-week academic quarter, six student design teams created conceptual masterplans for therapeutic outdoor spaces at the Washington Corrections Center for Women. Students presented their plans to prison staff, current and ex-offenders, and architects and landscape architects in practice, and then received positive feedback. CONCLUSION: Despite well-documented need for and value of nature interventions to improve health and wellbeing for everyone regardless of circumstance or situation, the project awaits administrative approval to move forward to installation.

Keywords

Recovery; Exposure; Health; Correctional Institutions; Environmental Justice; Therapeutic Outdoor Environments; Interdisciplinary Academic Design Studio

Residential Property Values are Associated with Obesity among Women in King County, WA, USA

Rehm, Colin D.; Moudon, Anne V.; Hurvitz, Philip M.; Drewnowski, Adam. (2012). Residential Property Values are Associated with Obesity among Women in King County, WA, USA. Social Science & Medicine, 75(3), 491 – 495.

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Abstract

Studies of social determinants of weight and health in the US have typically relied on self-reported education and incomes as the two primary measures of socioeconomic status (SES). The assessed value of one's home, an important component of wealth, may be a better measure of the underlying SES construct and a better predictor of obesity. The Seattle Obesity Study (SOS), conducted in 2008-9, was a cross-sectional random digit dial telephone survey of 2001 adults in King County, Washington State, US. Participants' addresses were geocoded and residential property values for each tax parcel were obtained from the county tax assessor's database. Prevalence ratios of obesity by property values, education, and household income were estimated separately for women and men, after adjusting for age, race/ethnicity, household size, employment status and home ownership. Among women, the inverse association between property values and obesity was very strong and independent of other SES factors. Women in the bottom quartile of property values were 3.4 times more likely to be obese than women in the top quartile. No association between property values and obesity was observed for men. The present data strengthen the evidence for a social gradient in obesity among women. Property values may represent a novel and objective measure of SES at the individual level in the US. Measures based on tax assessment data will provide a valuable resource for future health studies. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords

Communities; Employment; Income; Obesity; Poisson Distribution; Probability Theory; Research Funding; Self-evaluation; Sex Distribution; Social Classes; Statistics; Surveys; Data Analysis; Educational Attainment; Cross-sectional Method; Data Analysis Software; Descriptive Statistics; Washington (state); Health Status Disparities; Health Surveys; Social Class; Socioeconomic Factors; Usa; Women; Body-mass Index; Socioeconomic-status; Aged Men; Health; Weight; Disparities; Overweight; Disease; Poverty; Height