(Press-News.org) March 4, 2024- New York City neighborhoods with disrupted community connections, due to traffic, roads, and transport infrastructure, are experiencing an increase in traffic collisions. This increase is seen both in total collisions and for those in which pedestrians or cyclists are injured or killed, according to a new study from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. The findings are reported in the journal Environment International.
“Despite recent remarkable progress, road safety remains an urgent urban issue in New York and other U.S. cities. It is important to understand how the spatial configuration of the city enhances these road safety issues,” said Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou, ScD, associate professor of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health and senior author. “We wanted to investigate how the presence of road traffic and roads influence our health, beyond more commonly studied exposures such as air pollution and noise. Hopefully, our findings can help the design of a less deadly and a healthier city.”
In the United States, roadway fatalities declined from 1980 to 2010, followed by a plateau in the 2010s but increased again in 2020 and 2021. The authors developed the first index of community severance (Community Severance Index) to characterize the role of roads, traffic, and lack of pedestrian infrastructure in the disconnection of communities. The authors then examined the impact of community severance on road collisions, both in general and specifically pedestrians and cyclists.
The researchers used road traffic collisions for 2019, to estimate the association between census block group-level Community Severance Index and annual traffic collisions. NYC-Open Data provided detailed information on the date and location of road traffic collisions. The authors used three main categories of spatial data to develop the Community Severance Index for every census block group in NYC: road infrastructure, road traffic activity and pedestrian infrastructure.
The spatial data to generate the index were obtained through the smart location database from EPA and other providers such as road infrastructure data from OpenStreetmap and road traffic intensity from the U.S. Department of Transportation. They used an artificial intelligence algorithm to identify patterns in the data, identifying many severed communities in the city, with a high presence of roads and traffic, to the detriment of spaces for pedestrians. “We hypothesized that this novel index of community severance would be higher in areas prone to traffic collisions and investigated the relationship between the two,” said Jaime Benavides, an associate research scientist in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, who led the study.
“We further evaluated the association between the Community Severance Index and road traffic collisions specifically when pedestrians or cyclists were injured/killed, finding similar effects. We also took into account additional factors, including sociodemographic data, which could potentially influence the association between the Community Severance Index and road traffic collisions.”
The researchers focused on road traffic collisions, as an approximation for road safety, because they can affect urban health both directly through injuries and death, but also indirectly, by for example, influencing the chosen transportation mode. “Perception of lower road safety can lead people to choose to drive a car instead of cycling or walking in their day-by-day trips,” said Benavides.
The health impacts of living in severed communities, nonetheless, can go beyond road safety. For instance, other studies have shown that residents on streets with higher traffic volume interact less with their neighbors relative to those living on less congested streets. Historically in the U.S., financial and political support has prioritized highways instead of public transit systems. Many of these urban highways were built directly through the neighborhoods of disadvantaged Black communities, severing their connections internally and, or, segregating them from other communities. Investigating how the predominant presence of roads and traffic shapes our health and behaviors and acts as a barrier, to the detriment of urban spaces for pedestrians, was the authors’ motive to develop an index to measure community severance.
“Our results highlight the necessity to further understand how the presence of road infrastructure and traffic influences human health in cities beyond most commonly studied traffic-related exposures such as air pollution and noise,” said Kioumourtzoglou. “The comprehensive indicator we developed for the presence of roads and traffic, the Community Severance Index, can be useful to identify areas that require targeted interventions, such as pedestrianization programs in New York City and other U.S. cities,” said Benavides.
Co-authors are Sabah Usmani and Vijay Kumar, Columbia Mailman School of Public Health.
The work was supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) (P30 ES009089, R01 ES028805, R01 ES030616). The authors have no known competing financial interests.
Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
Founded in 1922, the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health pursues an agenda of research, education, and service to address the critical and complex public health issues affecting New Yorkers, the nation and the world. The Columbia Mailman School is the fourth largest recipient of NIH grants among schools of public health. Its nearly 300 multi-disciplinary faculty members work in more than 100 countries around the world, addressing such issues as preventing infectious and chronic diseases, environmental health, maternal and child health, health policy, climate change and health, and public health preparedness. It is a leader in public health education with more than 1,300 graduate students from 55 nations pursuing a variety of master’s and doctoral degree programs. The Columbia Mailman School is also home to numerous world-renowned research centers, including ICAP and the Center for Infection and Immunity. For more information, please visit www.mailman.columbia.edu.
END
Communities severed by roads and traffic experience a larger number of collisions in New York City
2024-03-04
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Study shows new class of antivirals that works against SARS-CoV-2
2024-03-04
EDMONTON — A University of Alberta research team has uncovered a new class of drugs with the potential to prevent or treat infections in a future viral outbreak.
In the paper, published this week in Nature, the team reports that SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes COVID-19 — activates a pathway in cells that stops the production of peroxisomes and interferon, key parts of the normal immune response. The team successfully tested a new class of antiviral drugs that stimulate interferon production to reverse that effect.
Tom ...
Cost of direct air carbon capture to remain higher than hoped
2024-03-04
Switzerland plans to reduce its net carbon emissions to zero by no later than 2050. To achieve this, it will need to drastically reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. In its climate strategy, the Swiss government acknowledges that some of these emissions, particularly in agriculture and industry, are difficult or impossible to avoid. Swiss climate policy therefore envisages actively removing 5 million tonnes of CO2 from the air and permanently storing it underground. By way of comparison, the Intergovernmental ...
Unraveling the mystery of chiton visual systems
2024-03-04
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — You’d probably walk past a chiton without even seeing it. These creatures often look like nothing more than another speck of seaweed on the crusty intertidal rocks. But it sees you. At least, if it’s one of the species with eyes dotting its platemail shell.
A team of scientists — led by Rebecca Varney at UC Santa Barbara’s Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology (EEMB) — discovered that some of these tough mollusks sport the most recently evolved eyes with a lens. What’s more, the ...
Case Western Reserve University-led research team discovers new method to test for oral cancer
2024-03-04
CLEVELAND—Oral cancers and precancerous mouth lesions are considered especially difficult to diagnose early and accurately.
For one, biopsies are expensive, invasive, stressful for the patient and can lead to complications. They’re also not feasible if repeated screenings of the same lesion are required.
But a team of researchers, led by a clinician scientist at the Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine, has discovered a noninvasive, low-cost test to detect oral cancer, monitor precancerous lesions and determine when a biopsy is warranted.
Their findings, published ...
Firearm access and gun violence exposure are common in Black and native communities
2024-03-04
A New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center study is the first to provide nationally representative data on gun use, storage and violence within Black and American Indian/Alaskan Native (AIAN) families.
Both Black and native communities have seen increasingly elevated rates of gun violence victimization, including homicide and suicide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In recent years, minorities have become more represented among new firearm owners. Despite this, research on firearm access, storage and use has focused on samples of white adults. This prevents understanding the access Black and native individuals have to firearms, whether they are stored ...
New AI smartphone tool accurately diagnoses ear infections
2024-03-04
A new cellphone app developed by physician-scientists at UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to accurately diagnose ear infections, or acute otitis media (AOM), could help decrease unnecessary antibiotic use in young children, according to new research published today in JAMA Pediatrics.
AOM is one of the most common childhood infections for which antibiotics are prescribed but can be difficult to discern from other ear conditions without intensive training. The new AI tool, which makes a diagnosis by assessing ...
Screen time and parent-child talk when children are ages 12 to 36 months
2024-03-04
About The Study: This study found a negative association between screen time and measures of parent-child talk when children are 12 to 36 months of age. For every additional minute of screen time, children heard fewer adult words, spoke fewer vocalizations, and engaged in fewer back-and-forth interactions. Interventions aiming to promote early use of language should include support to manage screen time.
Authors: Mary E. Brushe, Ph.D., of the University of Western Australia in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia, is the corresponding author.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2023.6790)
Editor’s ...
Firearm access and gun violence exposure among American Indian or Alaska native and Black adults
2024-03-04
About The Study: In this nationally representative survey study of 3,542 American Indian or Alaska Native and Black U.S. adults, a substantial percentage of both groups reported living in homes with firearms, storing firearms loaded and unlocked, frequently carrying firearms outside the home, and having been exposed directly and indirectly to gun violence. These findings underscore the need for nuanced public health campaigns and policies and highlight challenges for law enforcement in contexts of racial disparities ...
Associations of medical debt with health status, premature death, and mortality in the US
2024-03-04
About The Study: The findings of this study of 2,943 counties suggest that medical debt is associated with worse health status, more premature deaths, and higher mortality rates at the county level in the U.S. Therefore, policies increasing access to affordable health care, such as expanding health insurance coverage, may improve population health.
Authors: Xuesong Han, Ph.D., of the American Cancer Society in Atlanta, is the corresponding author.
To access the embargoed ...
Low-cost liquid tames tooth decay
2024-03-04
An inexpensive, cavity-fighting liquid called silver diamine fluoride (SDF) works as well as dental sealants to keep tooth decay at bay in a school cavity prevention and treatment program, according to a new study by researchers at NYU College of Dentistry.
The study, which followed more than 4,000 elementary school students for four years and is published in JAMA Pediatrics, shows that SDF is an effective alternative to sealants, and can increase access to dental care while reducing costs.
Dental cavities are the most prevalent ...