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Associations between Urban Sprawl and Life Expectancy in the United States

In recent years, the United States has had a relatively poor performance with respect to life expectancy compared to the other developed nations. Urban sprawl is one of the potential causes of the high rate of mortality in the United States. This study investigated cross-sectional associations betwe...

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Autores principales: Hamidi, Shima, Ewing, Reid, Tatalovich, Zaria, Grace, James B., Berrigan, David
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5981900/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29701644
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15050861
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author Hamidi, Shima
Ewing, Reid
Tatalovich, Zaria
Grace, James B.
Berrigan, David
author_facet Hamidi, Shima
Ewing, Reid
Tatalovich, Zaria
Grace, James B.
Berrigan, David
author_sort Hamidi, Shima
collection PubMed
description In recent years, the United States has had a relatively poor performance with respect to life expectancy compared to the other developed nations. Urban sprawl is one of the potential causes of the high rate of mortality in the United States. This study investigated cross-sectional associations between sprawl and life expectancy for metropolitan counties in the United States in 2010. In this study, the measure of life expectancy in 2010 came from a recently released dataset of life expectancies by county. This study modeled average life expectancy with a structural equation model that included five mediators: annual vehicle miles traveled (VMT) per household, average body mass index, crime rate, and air quality index as mediators of sprawl, as well as percentage of smokers as a mediator of socioeconomic status. After controlling for sociodemographic characteristics, this study found that life expectancy was significantly higher in compact counties than in sprawling counties. Compactness affects mortality directly, but the causal mechanism is unclear. For example, it may be that sprawling areas have higher traffic speeds and longer emergency response times, lower quality and less accessible health care facilities, or less availability of healthy foods. Compactness affects mortality indirectly through vehicle miles traveled, which is a contributor to traffic fatalities, and through body mass index, which is a contributor to many chronic diseases. This study identified significant direct and indirect associations between urban sprawl and life expectancy. These findings support further research and practice aimed at identifying and implementing changes to urban planning designed to support health and healthy behaviors.
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spelling pubmed-59819002018-06-07 Associations between Urban Sprawl and Life Expectancy in the United States Hamidi, Shima Ewing, Reid Tatalovich, Zaria Grace, James B. Berrigan, David Int J Environ Res Public Health Article In recent years, the United States has had a relatively poor performance with respect to life expectancy compared to the other developed nations. Urban sprawl is one of the potential causes of the high rate of mortality in the United States. This study investigated cross-sectional associations between sprawl and life expectancy for metropolitan counties in the United States in 2010. In this study, the measure of life expectancy in 2010 came from a recently released dataset of life expectancies by county. This study modeled average life expectancy with a structural equation model that included five mediators: annual vehicle miles traveled (VMT) per household, average body mass index, crime rate, and air quality index as mediators of sprawl, as well as percentage of smokers as a mediator of socioeconomic status. After controlling for sociodemographic characteristics, this study found that life expectancy was significantly higher in compact counties than in sprawling counties. Compactness affects mortality directly, but the causal mechanism is unclear. For example, it may be that sprawling areas have higher traffic speeds and longer emergency response times, lower quality and less accessible health care facilities, or less availability of healthy foods. Compactness affects mortality indirectly through vehicle miles traveled, which is a contributor to traffic fatalities, and through body mass index, which is a contributor to many chronic diseases. This study identified significant direct and indirect associations between urban sprawl and life expectancy. These findings support further research and practice aimed at identifying and implementing changes to urban planning designed to support health and healthy behaviors. MDPI 2018-04-26 2018-05 /pmc/articles/PMC5981900/ /pubmed/29701644 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15050861 Text en © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Hamidi, Shima
Ewing, Reid
Tatalovich, Zaria
Grace, James B.
Berrigan, David
Associations between Urban Sprawl and Life Expectancy in the United States
title Associations between Urban Sprawl and Life Expectancy in the United States
title_full Associations between Urban Sprawl and Life Expectancy in the United States
title_fullStr Associations between Urban Sprawl and Life Expectancy in the United States
title_full_unstemmed Associations between Urban Sprawl and Life Expectancy in the United States
title_short Associations between Urban Sprawl and Life Expectancy in the United States
title_sort associations between urban sprawl and life expectancy in the united states
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5981900/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29701644
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15050861
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