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The Impacts of Car-Free Days and Events on the Environment and Human Health

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: In this paper, we seek to elucidate the impact of car-free days and events on human health. Car-free days and events are often designed to alleviate the impact of transportation-related air pollution, noise, physical inactivity, traffic congestion, or other detrimental externaliti...

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Autores principales: Glazener, Andrew, Wylie, James, van Waas, Willem, Khreis, Haneen
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer International Publishing 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8831014/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35146704
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40572-022-00342-y
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author Glazener, Andrew
Wylie, James
van Waas, Willem
Khreis, Haneen
author_facet Glazener, Andrew
Wylie, James
van Waas, Willem
Khreis, Haneen
author_sort Glazener, Andrew
collection PubMed
description PURPOSE OF REVIEW: In this paper, we seek to elucidate the impact of car-free days and events on human health. Car-free days and events are often designed to alleviate the impact of transportation-related air pollution, noise, physical inactivity, traffic congestion, or other detrimental externalities of private motor vehicle travel. We reviewed existing peer-reviewed and gray literature to understand the variety of potential public health impacts that have been measured as a result of car-free days or events and associated changes in environmental exposures and lifestyles. RECENT FINDINGS: The impacts of car-free days and events are highly variable and seem to depend on the scope (frequency, duration, and geographic size) and goals of each car-free day and event. Most of the existing literature measures impacts in terms of air and noise pollution and some studies focus on physical activity metrics. In some cases, car-free days and events were successful in reducing the concentration of certain air pollutants but had little or adverse impacts on the concentration of others. Often, traffic is diverted from cordoned areas to surrounding streets, displacing traffic congestion and adverse environmental exposures to other areas of a city, with potential understudied implications to environmental justice. SUMMARY: Car-free days and events are often an attractive policy option; however, they require intensive planning to be successful. The organization and execution of car-free days and events, as well as public support and stakeholder engagement, greatly influence the level of success and the sustainability of such initiatives. Health benefits may be a palatable and convincing argument to the general public. However, very few studies focus on actual health impacts associated with car-free days and events. Future research could be most useful if it focused on measuring health outcomes associated with car-free days and events through longitudinal studies.
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spelling pubmed-88310142022-02-18 The Impacts of Car-Free Days and Events on the Environment and Human Health Glazener, Andrew Wylie, James van Waas, Willem Khreis, Haneen Curr Environ Health Rep Built Environment and Health (MJ Nieuwenhuijsen and AJ de Nazelle, Section Editors) PURPOSE OF REVIEW: In this paper, we seek to elucidate the impact of car-free days and events on human health. Car-free days and events are often designed to alleviate the impact of transportation-related air pollution, noise, physical inactivity, traffic congestion, or other detrimental externalities of private motor vehicle travel. We reviewed existing peer-reviewed and gray literature to understand the variety of potential public health impacts that have been measured as a result of car-free days or events and associated changes in environmental exposures and lifestyles. RECENT FINDINGS: The impacts of car-free days and events are highly variable and seem to depend on the scope (frequency, duration, and geographic size) and goals of each car-free day and event. Most of the existing literature measures impacts in terms of air and noise pollution and some studies focus on physical activity metrics. In some cases, car-free days and events were successful in reducing the concentration of certain air pollutants but had little or adverse impacts on the concentration of others. Often, traffic is diverted from cordoned areas to surrounding streets, displacing traffic congestion and adverse environmental exposures to other areas of a city, with potential understudied implications to environmental justice. SUMMARY: Car-free days and events are often an attractive policy option; however, they require intensive planning to be successful. The organization and execution of car-free days and events, as well as public support and stakeholder engagement, greatly influence the level of success and the sustainability of such initiatives. Health benefits may be a palatable and convincing argument to the general public. However, very few studies focus on actual health impacts associated with car-free days and events. Future research could be most useful if it focused on measuring health outcomes associated with car-free days and events through longitudinal studies. Springer International Publishing 2022-02-10 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC8831014/ /pubmed/35146704 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40572-022-00342-y Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Built Environment and Health (MJ Nieuwenhuijsen and AJ de Nazelle, Section Editors)
Glazener, Andrew
Wylie, James
van Waas, Willem
Khreis, Haneen
The Impacts of Car-Free Days and Events on the Environment and Human Health
title The Impacts of Car-Free Days and Events on the Environment and Human Health
title_full The Impacts of Car-Free Days and Events on the Environment and Human Health
title_fullStr The Impacts of Car-Free Days and Events on the Environment and Human Health
title_full_unstemmed The Impacts of Car-Free Days and Events on the Environment and Human Health
title_short The Impacts of Car-Free Days and Events on the Environment and Human Health
title_sort impacts of car-free days and events on the environment and human health
topic Built Environment and Health (MJ Nieuwenhuijsen and AJ de Nazelle, Section Editors)
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8831014/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35146704
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40572-022-00342-y
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