This newly funded project (NIEHS R01 ES014234) builds on the Healthy Environments Partnership) to reduce the growing health burden of obesity among residents of Detroit neighborhoods. The LGM intervention combines interventions at multiple levels--including the built environment, the social environment, and social, informational, and behavioral approaches--to promote access to environments that support physical activity and access to healthy foods in Detroit neighborhoods. The prevalence of obesity, a major risk factor for four of the ten leading causes of death (cardiovascular disease, diabetes, dietary cancers, and stroke), has risen dramatically over the past 20 years in the United States. In neighborhoods with few economic resources, aspects of the built environment may be less conducive to physical activity and healthy diets, placing residents disproportionately at risk. The growing health burden of obesity and co-morbidities highlight the need to identify effective measures of the means by which the built environment influences health, as well as effective interventions to create
healthier environments. This longitudinal intervention research effort will contribute to both of these goals. Specifically, the project will: 1) Assess independent and collective scientific contributions of five methods of assessing characteristics of the built environment (spatial indicators of access to parks, greenways, grocery stores; street connectivity mapping; typologies of neighborhood characteristics; observed indicators of the built environment; and residents' perceptions) for understanding the means by which the built environment influences behavioral and biological factors associated with obesity and related co-morbidities among African American, Hispanic and white residents of Detroit; 2) Develop and implement additional
components of a multilevel, multisite intervention that incorporates modifications of the built environment and that builds on ongoing social and behavioral approaches to promote physical activity and access to healthy foods in eastside, northwest and southwest Detroit; 3) Conduct longitudinal analyses to evaluate the effects of changes in the built environment alone and in conjunction with multilevel, multisite social, informational and behavioral approaches to promote physical activity and access to healthy foods among African American, Hispanic and white residents of Detroit; and 4) Disseminate findings about the implications of changes in the built environment alone, and in conjunction with behavioral and social interventions, for behavioral and biological indicators of obesity and related co-morbidities to community members and to local, regional and national decision makers.
For more information please contact: Amy Schulz.