A Method to Assess Competing Risks Associated with Pedestrian-Oriented Environments

APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Audrey De Nazelle, MS, PhD candidat, Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, SPH, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Rosenau Hall, Campus Box 7431, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7431, 919 966 7238, audrey@unc.edu

Creating more pedestrian-friendly environments is seen as a “common cause” solution for a multitude of health and environmental problems that have challenged US policy makers, such as air pollution, physical activity, and social interaction. However, some unintended consequences may emerge from such community designs. For example walking and cycling along busy roads may increase exposure to air pollutants and traffic hazards. Yet, little research has addressed the net health effect that results from changes in the built environment, while urban policies are generally not concerned with such assessments. Before undergoing widespread neighborhood transformations, it is timely to examine the effects of changes towards community designs that support walking, including their unintended consequences. This research proposes a methodology to assess built environment changes, focusing on the competing health risks associated with the creation of more walkable environments. Specifically, the health tradeoffs between increased physical activity and changes in exposures to air pollution and traffic hazards are estimated. The approach is to simulate population behavior and health in a case-study area where neighborhood transformations are hypothesized. A probabilistic model is built, set in a geographic information system (GIS). This presentation first reviews the theoretical and empirical evidence of health trade-offs associated with pedestrian-friendly designs. The multi-disciplinary modeling approach assessing net health effects of the neighborhood transformations is then presented. Examples of computational model steps developed to quantitatively measure competing risks are provided. The presentation concludes with analysis results and their potential use for guiding policies for more health-promoting community built environments.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of the session, the participant will be able to

1. Establish connections between the fields of urban planning, design, environmental studies and public health, and identify each field’s perspective on impacts of the built environment.
2. Identify risk tradeoffs that may emerge when creating more pedestrian-friendly environments.
3. Describe planning, transportation, design and public health theoretical and empirical findings concerning pedestrian-oriented built environments, their uses, and their impacts.
4. Construct a risk assessment framework to measure net health impacts resulting from competing risks associated with changing neighborhoods towards more pedestrian-oriented environments.
5. Understand how a GIS-based probabilistic model assessing competing health impacts of changes in the built environment may be developed.
6. Recognize how information on unintended consequences of creating communities that support walking may be used to create more health-promoting built environments.

Keywords: Risk Assessment, Environmental Exposures

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered

Handout (.ppt format, 4773.5 kb)

Environment Section Student Poster Session

The 134th Annual Meeting & Exposition (November 4-8, 2006) of APHA