Public Health
Basics
What Should Doctors Do to Prevent Traffic Deaths?
When cars first became a common presence in American cities, doctors were shocked by the carnage. In 1925, editors of the New England Journal of Medicine called the bloodshed caused by motorists "appalling" and lamented children's loss of life as "a massacre of the innocent." The sense of urgency was still detectable a few decades later. In a 1957 report, Harvard researchers called the public health threat posed by automobiles a “mass disease of epidemic proportions.”
January 13, 2014
Heart Disease, Traffic Jams and ADHD Share One Simple Solution: Drive Less
This is an excerpt from "Bikenomics: How Bicycling Can Save the Economy," by Elly Blue (Microcosm Publishing, December 1, 2013, bikenomics.com). See our interview with Elly from spring 2013.
October 18, 2013
The Defense Department’s Embrace of Livability Will Save Money — and Lives
On Tuesday, we wrote about the Defense Department’s new rules for the design of their bases and installations. These rules make smart growth the law of the land on hundreds of vast military installations in the U.S. and abroad. There’s more to the story: In this post we examine how a smart growth development model will bring wide-ranging benefits to the defense complex.
June 20, 2013
Celebrate Bike to Work Week, No Matter What You Weigh
Happy Bike to Work Week, everybody! It's a great time to give a gentle nudge to someone who you think would benefit from biking. In that vein, personal trainer and fitness coach Stephanie Averkamp of San Diego posted this infographic to her personal health website. She says she especially hopes to convince overweight and obese people to bike more.
May 13, 2013
What Should the Surgeon General Say to Get More People Walking?
What if cars came with a Surgeon General’s warning like the ones that come on cigarette packs: "Sitting in this seat could lead to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, and divorce."
April 2, 2013
Designing Communities for Longevity: The Blue Zones Project
Is your neighborhood designed to make people healthy or sick? With the right characteristics, the place where you live could add years to your life.
February 8, 2013
Surgeon General Announces Call to Action on Walking
Walking can seem like a rather mundane thing to get organized about, until you realize that it’s a direct challenge to car-oriented transportation and it’s the best thing people can do for their health. Then walking is downright revolutionary.
December 5, 2012
British National Health Experts: Cycling Safer Than Couch Sitting
A British national health authority is advising UK residents to make walking and cycling the norm for short trips, in order to reduce the risk of chronic diseases associated with the nation's obesity epidemic.
November 30, 2012
Infographic: The Many Connections Between Transportation and Health
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation launched their "New Public Health" website last year with the goal of meeting community members where they are to talk about public health. A lot of those conversations happen online, and they explore the connections between public health and policy decisions related to everything from education to transportation. Last week, they published an interview with U.S. DOT Secretary Ray LaHood.
October 29, 2012