•We ask which bicycle lane types are associated with fewest crashes.•Spatial units of analysis were street segments and intersections.•Lowest crash odds found where there are higher speeds, tram ...stops, and bus routes.•Exclusive bicycle lanes reduced bicycle crashes in all these settings.•Kerbside bicycle lanes were the least beneficial bicycle lane type.
Bicycle lanes reduce real and perceived risks for bicycle vs. motor vehicle crashes, reducing the burden of traffic injuries and contributing to greater cycling participation. Previous research indicates that the effectiveness of bicycle lanes differs according to roadway characteristics, and that bicycle lane types are differentially associated with reduced crash risks. The aim of this study is to combine these perspectives and identify the types of on-road bicycle lanes that are associated with the greatest reductions in bicycle crashes given the presence of specific roadway characteristics. We compiled a cross sectional spatial dataset consisting of 32,444 intersection polygons and 57,285 street segment polygons representing the roadway network for inner Melbourne, Australia. The dependent measure was a dichotomous indicator for any bicycle crash (2014–2017). Independent measures were bicycle lanes (exclusive bicycle lanes, shared bicycle and parking lanes, marked wide kerbside lanes, and kerbside bicycle lanes) and other roadway characteristics (speed limit, bus routes, tram routes, bridges, one-way flow, traffic lane width). In Bayesian conditional autoregressive logit models, bicycle lanes of all types were associated with decreased crash odds where speeds were greater, bus routes and tram stops were present, and traffic lanes were narrower. Only exclusive bicycle lanes were associated with reduced crash odds (compared to the expected odds given the presence of the bicycle lane and the roadway conditions) in all these setting. The extent to which on-road bicycle lanes reduce crash risks depends on the bicycle lane type, the roadway conditions, and the combination of these two factors. Bicycle lanes that provide greater separation between cyclists and vehicular traffic are most consistently protective.
Purpose of Review
Many neighborhoods which have been unjustly impacted by histories of uneven urban development, resulting in socioeconomic and racial segregation, are now at risk for gentrification. ...As urban renewal projects lead to improvements in the long-neglected built environments of such neighborhoods, accompanying gentrification processes may lead to the displacement of or exclusion of underprivileged residents from benefiting from new amenities and improvements. In addition, gentrification processes may be instigated by various drivers. We aimed to discuss the implications of specific types of gentrification, by driver, for health equity.
Recent Findings
Several recent articles find differential effects of gentrification on the health of underprivileged residents of gentrifying neighborhoods compared to those with greater privilege (where sociodemographic dimensions such as race or socioeconomic status are used as a proxy for privilege). Generally, studies show that gentrification may be beneficial for the health of more privileged residents while harming or not benefiting the health of underprivileged residents. Very recent articles have begun to test hypothesized pathways by which urban renewal indicators, gentrification, and health equity are linked. Few public health articles to date are designed to detect distinct impacts of specific drivers of gentrification.
Summary
Using a case example, we hypothesize how distinct drivers of gentrification—specifically, retail gentrification, environmental gentrification, climate gentrification, studentification, tourism gentrification, and health care gentrification—may imply specific pathways toward reduced health equity. Finally, we discuss the challenges faced by researchers in assessing the health impacts of gentrification.
Purpose of Review
This paper reviews the use of conceptual frameworks in research on active travel, such as walking and cycling. Generic framework features and a wide range of contents are identified ...and synthesized into a comprehensive framework of active travel behavior, as part of the Physical Activity through Sustainable Transport Approaches project (PASTA). PASTA is a European multinational, interdisciplinary research project on active travel and health.
Recent Findings
Along with an exponential growth in active travel research, a growing number of conceptual frameworks has been published since the early 2000s. Earlier frameworks are simpler and emphasize the distinction of environmental vs. individual factors, while more recently several studies have integrated travel behavior theories more thoroughly.
Summary
Based on the reviewed frameworks and various behavioral theories, we propose the comprehensive PASTA conceptual framework of active travel behavior. We discuss how it can guide future research, such as data collection, data analysis, and modeling of active travel behavior, and present some examples from the PASTA project.
Ivar Oddone faria 100 anos em 26 de outubro de 2023. Mas muitos não esperaram por esta data para prestar homenagem à obra deste médico e psicólogo do trabalho italiano falecido a 20 de outubro de ...2011. Ele faz, na verdade, parte da história da vasta "comunidade científica alargada", um conceito que concebeu para configurar o "modo de produção de conhecimento sobre o trabalho", levado a cabo por investigadores e os protagonistas do local de trabalho, com vista a contrariar o desenvolvimento de doenças devidas ao que, na realidade, não deixa de ser um "ambiente construído" dentro das empresas. Mas por que razão era óbvio, na altura, que Ivar Oddone se empenharia, como o fez neste percurso que envolveu muitos outros, em rever a forma como a saúde dos trabalhadores era concebida, assumindo opções nas quais predominarão aspetos humanos e sociais?
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has led to dramatic changes in quality of life, bringing to the forefront of the debate the question of planning and design of pandemic-resilient cities. ...Using quasi-longitudinal survey data (via a social media campaign) and geospatial data from Greek cities, we evaluate changes in health and well-being during COVID-19 compared to the pre-COVID-19 period, and then explore in detail how specific built environment characteristics in Athens and Thessaloniki relate to health and well-being before and during COVID-19. Results suggest that overall health, life satisfaction, happiness, personal relationships satisfaction, leisure satisfaction, satisfaction with income, and satisfaction with vacations all decreased during COVID-19, while anxiety and back pain increased during COVID-19. The role of the urban built environment in health and well-being was found to differ considerably for the COVID-19 period compared to pre-COVID-19. Proximity to large parks, proximity to numerous local facilities, lower neighborhood density, living further from the city center, and living in a larger dwelling were associated with better health and well-being outcomes during COVID-19. Urban planning and relevant policies that cities adopt should carefully focus on mitigating implications for critical issues such as the quest for sustainable urban development and city forms.
•Health and well-being in cities worsened due to the COVID-19 pandemic.•The built environment may contribute to COVID-19-related changes in health and well-being.•Denser neighborhoods linked to lower well-being during COVID-19.•Smaller dwellings linked to worse health outcomes during COVID-19.•Implications for cities and urban planning are discussed.
Since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus infectious disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak a pandemic on 11 March, severe lockdown measures have been adopted by the Italian ...Government. For over two months of stay-at-home orders, houses became the only place where people slept, ate, worked, practiced sports, and socialized. As consolidated evidence exists on housing as a determinant of health, it is of great interest to explore the impact that COVID-19 response-related lockdown measures have had on mental health and well-being. We conducted a large web-based survey on 8177 students from a university institute in Milan, Northern Italy, one of the regions most heavily hit by the pandemic in Europe. As emerged from our analysis, poor housing is associated with increased risk of depressive symptoms during lockdown. In particular, living in apartments <60 m
with poor views and scarce indoor quality is associated with, respectively, 1.31 (95% CI: 1046-1637), 1.368 (95% CI: 1166-1605), and 2.253 (95% CI: 1918-2647) times the risk of moderate-severe and severe depressive symptoms. Subjects reporting worsened working performance from home were over four times more likely to also report depression (OR = 4.28, 95% CI: 3713-4924). Housing design strategies should focus on larger and more livable living spaces facing green areas. We argue that a strengthened multi-interdisciplinary approach, involving urban planning, public mental health, environmental health, epidemiology, and sociology, is needed to investigate the effects of the built environment on mental health, so as to inform welfare and housing policies centered on population well-being.
It is not infrequently heard in architectural circles that architecture is an inherently political enterprise and pursuit, such that build structures are, correspondingly, inherently political ...objects. But does architecture, by its nature as practice or artifact, universally serve political ends? Taking ends of something X to be political iff X serves the projection of power by state or government, or advances policy-making, ideologies, or the body politic, it may be thought that
AP1. Architecture, in its products, always serves political ends.
on the grounds that, roughly speaking, wherever one looks, one finds cases providing evidence that
AP2. Buildings (built structures, generally) always serve political ends, and
AP3. Buildings (built structures) are the only products of architecture.
On the supposition that this fairly tracks the common view, I take for granted that the argument goes through if the premises are defensible. I propose, though, that neither AP2 nor AP3 are defensible, at least in the grand, universal fashion that they are offered.
•Residential density enhances subjective wellbeing via perceived age-friendliness.•Street connectivity has a curvilinear relationship with mental health.•Park green space positively affects mental ...health and subjective wellbeing.•Vegetation negatively affects subjective wellbeing through sense of community.•Health facilities enhance subjective wellbeing through sense of community.
Studies have indicated that a sense of community may be shaped by the built environment and has potential mental wellbeing implications. However, few studies have explored this pathway empirically. Moreover, research has rarely differentiated the role of objective and perceived built environment. Based on a survey of 1,553 older adults undertaken between 2015 and 2017 in Hong Kong, we explored the distal mediation pathway from objective built environment to both mental health and subjective wellbeing through perceived built environment and sense of community, using multilevel structural equation modeling. The results showed that perceived built environment and sense of community can fully explain the residential density and subjective wellbeing relationship. The inverted U-shape relationship between street connectivity and mental health was identified. Park-based green space had a protective role for both mental health and subjective wellbeing and was explained by two mediators, but vegetation-based green space was negatively associated with subjective wellbeing. Land use mix had positive total effects on both mental health and subjective wellbeing and was partially mediated by perceived built environment and sense of community. Recreational services showed a protective effect on both mental health and subjective wellbeing, and both were partially mediated by two mediators. The negative direct effect of health services on subjective wellbeing offsets the positive indirect effect through two mediators. The study findings have implications for landscape and urban planning policy and can provide an empirical contribution to the theoretical foundation of aging in place.
The city of Valparaíso, Chile, presents a centralized urban environment with a compact plain area that concentrates most of the commerce and services and hills in its surroundings where most people ...reside. Within this context and in addition to complex sociodemographic and topographical conditions, it is possible to question how the built environment and sociodemographic factors influence the accessibility conditions in this city. In this direction, this study seeks to understand the effects of the abovementioned factors on accessibility, with particular attention on leisure and work trips. This analysis is based on different combinations of least square regression models. In general, results show that the built environment has more effects on leisure accessibility, while work accessibility is conditioned to sociodemographic factors. Thus, results show that the city does not present an urban environment that delivers reliability for work trips, which is pressured by time and costs. To promote a sustainable and equitable development of the city of Valparaíso, it is relevant to consider the adequation and improving the built environment for work trips. Regarding leisure trips, there is a need to promote measures to improve safety on streets and access to low-capacity public transport. These measures are vital for promoting sustainable mobility in the city of Valparaíso.
The intensity of extreme precipitation events is projected to increase in a warmer climate
, posing a great challenge to water sustainability in natural and built environments. Of particular ...importance are rainfall (liquid precipitation) extremes owing to their instantaneous triggering of runoff and association with floods
, landslides
and soil erosion
. However, so far, the body of literature on intensification of precipitation extremes has not examined the extremes of precipitation phase separately, namely liquid versus solid precipitation. Here we show that the increase in rainfall extremes in high-elevation regions of the Northern Hemisphere is amplified, averaging 15 per cent per degree Celsius of warming-double the rate expected from increases in atmospheric water vapour. We utilize both a climate reanalysis dataset and future model projections to show that the amplified increase is due to a warming-induced shift from snow to rain. Furthermore, we demonstrate that intermodel uncertainty in projections of rainfall extremes can be appreciably explained by changes in snow-rain partitioning (coefficient of determination 0.47). Our findings pinpoint high-altitude regions as 'hotspots' that are vulnerable to future risk of extreme-rainfall-related hazards, thereby requiring robust climate adaptation plans to alleviate potential risk. Moreover, our results offer a pathway towards reducing model uncertainty in projections of rainfall extremes.
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