Journal Article

Health and the built environment in United States cities: measuring associations using Google Street View-derived indicators of the built environment

Huang, Dina, Keralis, Jessica M., Khanna, Sahil, Tasdizen, Tolga, Nguyen, Quynh C., Javanmardi, Mehran, Dwivedi, Pallavi

2020

Overview

Background The built environment is a structural determinant of health and has been shown to influence health expenditures, behaviors, and outcomes. Traditional methods of assessing built environment characteristics are time-consuming and difficult to combine or compare. Google Street View (GSV) images represent a large, publicly available data source that can be used to create indicators of characteristics of the physical environment with machine learning techniques. The aim of this study is to use GSV images to measure the association of built environment features with health-related behaviors and outcomes at the census tract level. Methods We used computer vision techniques to derive built environment indicators from approximately 31 million GSV images at 7.8 million intersections. Associations between derived indicators and health-related behaviors and outcomes on the census-tract level were assessed using multivariate regression models, controlling for demographic factors and socioeconomic position. Statistical significance was assessed at the α = 0.05 level. Results Single lane roads were associated with increased diabetes and obesity, while non-single-family home buildings were associated with decreased obesity, diabetes and inactivity. Street greenness was associated with decreased prevalence of physical and mental distress, as well as decreased binge drinking, but with increased obesity. Socioeconomic disadvantage was negatively associated with binge drinking prevalence and positively associated with all other health-related behaviors and outcomes. Conclusions Structural determinants of health such as the built environment can influence population health. Our study suggests that higher levels of urban development have mixed effects on health and adds further evidence that socioeconomic distress has adverse impacts on multiple physical and mental health outcomes.

• Publisher: BioMed Central,BioMed Central Ltd,Springer Nature B.V,BMC
• Subject: Application programming interface / Behavior / Binge drinking / Biostatistics / Built environment / Built Environment - statistics & numerical data / Census / Census of Population / Censuses / Cities / Cities and towns / Computer vision / Construction / Data collection / Demography / Diabetes / Diabetes mellitus / Drinking (Alcoholic beverages) / Drinking behavior / Economic indicators / Environmental Health / Epidemiology / Expenditures / Geographic Information Systems / Geospatial data / Google Street View / Health behavior / Health care costs / Health care expenditures / Health promotion / Health status / Humans / Imagery / Indicators / Land use / Learning algorithms / Learning environment / Machine learning / Medical economics / Medicine / Medicine & Public Health / Mental health / Methods / Neighborhoods / Obesity / Physical symptoms / Population health / Population studies / Psychological distress / Public Health / Regression analysis / Regression models / Research Article / Roads & highways / Social determinants of health / Socioeconomic factors / Socioeconomic status / Socioeconomics / Statistical analysis / Statistical significance / Structural determinants of health / Time / United States / Urban development / Urban environments / Urban Health - statistics & numerical data / Urban planning / Vaccine