Neighborhoods and
Health – The Importance of Place
A New Zealand study was done that
measured neighborhoods’ distance to various health based venues such as: parks,
fresh food establishments, gyms, and hospitals. Implementing GIS methods into
this type of research allowed for greater access to and understanding of health
related effects at a community level. The new index that was created will allow
for researchers to determine the impact of various neighborhoods on resident’s
health.
Under this new index, New Zealand
was divided into quintiles of accessibility. Unsurprisingly, there were great
variations in access between rural and urban neighborhoods. Overall, the most
accessible community resource was parks, and the least accessible was beaches. The following map shows each community's distance to fresh food.
The findings of this study suggest
that increased residential proximity to healthcare and recreational facilities
lowers the opportunity costs of attending, thus increasing the general health
level of surrounding communities. This creates many implications for future
policy makers when choosing areas to target for service and amenity planning. This information could also lead to a shift in housing prices as the "healthier" communities experience an increase in residents
I'm actually surprised that I haven't realized or heard more about proximity to hospitals and rec facilities lowering opportunity costs. It makes complete sense that this would be an occurrence, however. I also find it intriguing that people do move to these communities. Of course it makes sense but as more people move to this area, the distance that the houses can be built slowly increases. You cannot all live the same distance away, eventually, the houses will just get further and further away.
ReplyDeleteIsabella Vargas did an interesting study on hospital location impacts on locations of senior citizens. What is interesting is that she did not find senior citizens living to close to healthcare facilites. One would expect that choosing where to live in older age would follow patterns of access to healthcare, but it seemed that there were other factors that went into the decision of where to live. The future study that this type of analysis needs is personal surveys to understand why people choose to live in certain neighborhoods. Access services (health, community, businesses, education) does play a role, but it is not the sole factor.
DeleteThe map you show is interesting because it shows the food deserts of New Zealand. These type of access maps always show that rural regions are more prone to food deserts. Many cases the definition for access time to fresh food and what is a food desert is different for rural versus urban areas. The rural definition is often much greater. This would follow the logic that someone living in a rural area would understand that they must travel larger distance for services. If you want to check out some work done in the US, the USDA made some interesting maps for food deserts: http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-desert-locator.aspx
ReplyDeleteNew Zealand is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. It has mountain ranges, rainforests, and beautiful beaches with condos and resorts positioned adjacent. I think it would be interesting to see this map with population densities and inhabitable areas. I think we might find that most people are located around the more developed areas and as proximity to a food source decreases mountains and rainforests should appear.
ReplyDeleteI'm from Austin, TX and come to think about it hospitals in Austin aren't necessarily in or located next to neighborhoods. There are 4 hospitals that I can think of that are in downtown Austin. While these hospitals are accessible to the majority of Austin because they are located towards the center of Austin, yet at the same time anyone who travels through Austin knows that using the IH-35 highway guarantees being stuck in high volumes of traffic especially depending on the time of travel. With this being said it is scary to realize that a matter of life or death may depend on a few seconds, an ambulance fighting through traffic could take up the seconds one's life is depending on. In the future I hope hospitals will be built more spread throughout Austin as to all mainly in central Austin.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who commutes back and forth on I-35 every day, I've thought about this a lot. Has anyone heard of any studies relating proximity to hospitals with traffic density? I mean, Austin isn't alone in traffic problems. The US is becoming more and more urbanized by the day, and this is an interesting problem to present to urban developers/planners.
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