Health Impacts of Urban Development and Transportation Systems

Abstract

Urban transportation planning and land-use policies play a pivotal role in every society and are the subjects of interest in many academic fields. Creating a tool that measures the benefits and costs associated with the built environment, which includes the surrounding land-use and transportation system, would allow decision makers to choose the best option available to them when deciding on those important issues. In addition to travel time, congestion, safety, energy, and environment, public health is an important subject that can be affected by a transportation system. The primary objective of this study is to develop models for different health-related variables including general health, obesity, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, asthma, and heart attack. This is to investigate the role of transportation, land-use, and the built environment variables along with demographic and socioeconomic factors on people’s health. The results of the analysis showed that increasing the transit use and decreasing the autouse have a significant positive impact on all the health variables except for asthma. It was found that every percent decrease in autouse would reduce the chance of obesity by 0.4%, high blood pressure by 0.3%, high blood cholesterol by 1.3%, and heart attack by 1%. In addition to the transit-oriented development, making the environment more pedestrian friendly could motivate people to be more physically active in their daily routines and have a healthier lifestyle.