• Andrew G Rundle, Epidemiology
• Gina Lovasi, H&SS Cohort 4
• Kathryn Neckerman, ISERP, H&SS
• Malo Hutson, City & Regional Planning, UC Berkeley
• Awarded: Summer 2004 and Summer 2006

Led by Andrew Rundle, the Built Environment and Health (BEH) working group is an interdisciplinary program of research that examines the implications of the built environment.  The group is assembling a spatial model of the city with micro-scale information on land use, transportation networks, access to parks and other green space, and access to grocery stores, restaurants, and other retail establishments. Using a geographic information system (GIS), they are linking this information to several health datasets for New York City and the surrounding suburbs. Their pilot research shows that New Yorkers who live in more walkable neighborhoods tend to have lower body mass; these results were published in the American Journal of Health Promotion (March 2007) and were noted in several newspapers.  The BEH research group includes faculty and researchers from disciplines including urban planning, sociology, geography, and public health. Molly Martin, a Cohort 1 Scholar, was associated with this group while at Columbia, and Gina Lovasi, a Cohort 4 Scholar is a member of the research group.

Supported initially by a H&SS seed grant in 2003, then by working group funding in 2004 and 2006, the group now has R01 funding from the National Institute for Environmental Health Science through its "Obesity and the Built Environment" initiative.  In addition, the BEH group has funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Active Living Research program.  BEH is examining the association between built environment features and physical activity, diet, and obesity using three diverse samples drawn from New York City and the surrounding suburbs. Neighborhood measures include access to nearby retail stores and consumer services, parks and recreational facilities, public transit, and pedestrian-friendly street design.  The group is also developing and validating digital measures of aesthetic features of the urban environment, in order to learn whether aesthetically pleasing urban design encourages city residents to walk.

With funding from the National Science Foundation, BEH is examining neighborhood disparities in the accessibility of basic retail and services such as supermarkets and banks. Gina Lovasi, a Cohort 4 H&SS Scholar, has led a cross-site project – including Kathryn Neckerman at Columbia and Malo Hutson at Michigan H&SS – to develop a literature review on health disparities and the built environment.  The group currently has a proposal under review to support a new collaboration with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and is also collaborating with the New York Academy of Medicine and the Project for Public Spaces. Group members are active in the Kellogg Foundation-funded Partnership for Food and Fitness, a city-wide coalition of government agencies and community-based organizations that is developing a plan to promote healthy eating and physical activity in New York City, with a focus on low-income neighborhoods.

More broadly, the working group has used seed funding from the Health & Society Scholars Program to stimulate other new projects at Columbia. The working group awarded three small seed grants, to Helen Kwon, for a study of asthma, obesity, and fast food restaurants; to James Gangwisch, for research on sleep patterns and obesity risk; and to Allan Geliebter (Obesity Research Center, St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center), for a pilot experiment to see if subsidizing the purchase of fruits and vegetables has an impact on diet and weight. The working group hopes the seed grant program will contribute to a growing cluster of population health research on obesity and physical activity. The BEH group employs two full-time GIS analysts who have begun to work with other health-related projects at Columbia, including the Queens Vanguard site of the National Children’s Study, a study of childhood asthma as well and a birth cohort study examining neighborhood influence on health and social outcomes.

 Project website: www.beh.columbia.edu