Minority Health and Health Equity Archive

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    Designing Healthy Communities, Raising Healthy Kids: National Public Health Week 2006
    (2006) Benjamin, Georges C.
    The waves, winds, and rains of Hurricane Katrina irreversibly altered the landscape of the US Gulf Coast. Some communities are rebuilding on existing foundations; others are starting anew, with a virtual tabula rasa. Community leaders have been grappling with intense decisions on how—or in some instances, whether—to rebuild. Despite the sobering trials they face, they are presented with a unique opportunity: to factor health into community design and to rebuild these communities better than before. Imagine having the opportunity to redesign your own community. What would you change? How would you plan development so that achieving optimum health would be a priority? Would roads dominate your transportation options? Would housing be closer to jobs, grocery stores, and retail outlets? Would you preserve more park or farmland? These considerations are paramount to developing communities that can sustain good health. Children can be considered a bellwether for the health of our communities.
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    Impact of a new bicycle path on physical activity
    (2008) Cohen, Deborah; Sehgal, Amber; Williamson, Stephanie; Golinelli, Daniela; Lurie, Nicole; McKenzie, Thomas L.; Capone-Newton, Peter
    There has been a great deal of concern about obesity, with many calls for Americans to increase physical activity. In spite of all the attention and exhortations, the Outdoor Industry Foundation reported that bicycling is declining, having dropped from 3.9 billion outings in 2004 to 3.1 billion outings in 2005 (Outdoor Industry Foundation, 2006). The most dramatic drop in outings was for American females, who averaged 18 paved road biking outings in 2005 compared to 28 in 2004. Although new bike paths and roadways are frequently being built, there are few studies using objective measures in the United States that prospectively document increases in physical activity in response to environmental changes (Morrison et al., 2004; Killoran et al., 2006). Studies of the association between bicycling and the built environment have typically been cross-sectional (Nelson and Allen, 1997; Dill and Carr, 2003) and when change in the built environment is assessed for its impact on physical activity, studies have included repeated cross-sectional self-reports (Ogilvie et al., 2006), retrospective accounts of use over time (Boarnet et al., 2005), or simulations of what is expected (Niemeier, 1996).
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    Angels in the details: Comment on “The relationship between destination proximity, destination mix and physical activity behaviors”
    (2008) Sallis, James F.
    The connection between the built environment and physical activity is well accepted. Systematic reviews by the Transportation Research Board and Institute ofMedicine (2005) and CDC's Task Force on Community Preventive Services (Heath et al., 2006) have established this general finding. However, designers, planners, builders, and government officials need specific guidelines if they are to use research findings to change their practices. An important next step in research is to identify the specific modifiable aspects of the built environment that are most strongly related to physical activity. It is often said the devils are in the details, but in this casewe are likely to find angelic details that will help us improve the health of the population. This paper by McCormack et al. (2008) provides data that people who design and build communities may be able to put into practice. This paper advances the field in at least three important directions. First, this study helps us understand how close destinations need to be to stimulate physical activity. Proximity to destinations is a defining element of walkable communities, the latter being a pattern of land use that supports walking to nearby destinations. If there are no destinations within a reasonable walking distance, then the built environment eliminates the possibility of walking for transportation. The question is, what is a walkable distance? The consensus in the urban planning field is that people will only walk about a quarter of a mile (400 m or 5 min) to a destination, as explained by the authors.