Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Public Health

Study: Low-Income Neighborhoods Much More Likely to Have Dangerous Roads

By Angie Schmitt | Apr 25, 2012 | No Comments

Who suffers most from bad road design? Not surprisingly, the answer is poor people, according to a study published in the American Journal of Public Health. Researchers examined injury rates for pedestrians, drivers and cyclists over a five-year period in Montreal. They found pedestrians living in low-income neighborhoods were more than six times more likely […]

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New WHO Tool Calculates the Health Savings of Bike/Ped Infrastructure

By Angie Schmitt | Mar 23, 2012 | No Comments

Sidewalks, bike lanes, traffic calming projects — they save lives. Not just by protecting cyclists and pedestrians (not to mention motorists), but by encouraging physical activity that leads to a healthy life. Of course, it can be hard to convince politicians to see things in those terms when it’s time to pony up for walking […]

A Bike Company Offers a Prescription for America’s Health Care Cost Crisis

By Ben Fried | Mar 23, 2012 | 9 Comments

One of the most talked-about presentations at this week’s National Bike Summit came from Jason Gaikowski, director of sales for the Bloomington, Minnesota-based wholesale distributor Quality Bicycle Products. Over the last several years, QBP has ramped up its employee health and wellness program, which includes incentives to bike to work. At a time when most employers […]

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Anti-Sprawl Doctor to Host PBS Series on Urban Design and Public Health

By Angie Schmitt | Jan 27, 2012 | No Comments

“A leading voice for better urban design for the sake of good health.” “A public health/social justice hero.” Dr. Richard Jackson, chair of environmental health at UCLA, is a leading voice for transportation reform whose work has linked America’s sprawl to the nation’s high rates of obesity. The former director of the Center for Disease […]

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Maps Show Striking Link Between Car Commuting and Obesity

By Angie Schmitt | Jan 17, 2012 | No Comments

Check out these two maps, the first showing obesity rates (by county) in the United States and the second showing the percentage of commuters who travel by car (via Planetizen). Researchers Anne Price and Ariel Godwin at Planetizen caution readers not to conflate correlation and causation. However, when comparing other economic and demographic characteristics (unemployment, […]

Strong Majority Supports Protected Bike Lanes at East Harlem Hearing

By Noah Kazis | Dec 7, 2011 | 25 Comments

At a long and at points contentious public hearing last night, a clear majority of speakers came out in support of protected bike lanes on First and Second Avenues in East Harlem. In addition to local residents, the public health community came out in force to demolish the opposition’s claim that installing bike lanes could […]

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