Transportation for America joins the American Public Health Association, PolicyLink & other advocates to highlight health and transportation connection
October 15, 2009By Transportation for America
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Dozens of doctors and health professionals from around the country flooded the capital this week to educate Congress about the link between transportation policy and health. Co-hosted by the American Public Health Association, PolicyLink and others, the Transportation for America Health Summit incorporated both a policy briefing and individual meetings with lawmakers to highlight the connection between health and transportation.
The briefing, titled “Get Moving! Mobilizing for a Healthier Transportation System” showcased four high level experts on health and transportation including a youth wellness advocate and Transportation for America Director James Corless.
“America’s transportation system affects our health in profound ways, and we have a unique opportunity to forge a new direction that makes us healthier and saves us money over the long term,” Corless said.
Joining Corless as panelists were Dr. Georges Benjamin, Executive Director of the American Public Health Association; Dr. Richard Jackson, Chair and Professor of Environmental Health and Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles; Dr. Joe Thompson, Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity; Shireen Malekafzali, Senior Associate at PolicyLink and editor of “The Transportation Prescription;” and 14-year-old Julia Lopez, a youth wellness advocate.
“We are fortunate to have these innovators and forward-thinkers with us as we push for transportation policies that fit the needs of 21st Century America,” Corless added.
Briefing topics included the relationship between vehicle-generated pollution and respiratory complications; access to health care services, groceries and other essential destinations; active living and obesity prevention; the safety implications of our transportation policies; the health effects of greenhouse gas emissions; and overarching equity concerns among low-income and minority populations.
“We really are at a transportation crossroads,” said Dr. Benjamin. “Without transformational change in our priorities, we will perpetuate a transportation status quo that puts our health at risk, exacerbates health inequities and clouds our future. I am excited to be a part of this discussion and look forward to our continued participation in Transportation for America’s diverse coalition.”
A few key facts about the relationship between transportation policy and health:
- In the United States traffic fatalities kill just over 40,000 per year, costing the nation $230.6 billion, or 2.3 percent of the gross domestic product, since 2000.
- People in more compact metropolitan areas suffer from significantly fewer chronic medical conditions than their counterparts in more sprawling regions. For example people who live in neighborhoods with a mix of shops and businesses within easy walking distance have a 35 percent lower risk of obesity.
- Each year air pollution triggers over a million asthma attacks, more than 47,000 cases of chronic bronchitis in adults and 540,000 cases of acute bronchitis in children and kills 70,000 people.
- Vulnerable populations, such as seniors and minorities, who cannot or choose not to drive have a higher risk of being killed as a pedestrian. African-Americans make up approximately 12 percent of that population, but they account for 20 percent of pedestrian deaths. Native Americans are 1.5 times more likely to die from traffic crashes than anyone else.
“It is critical that our nation’s policies promote healthy living,” said 14-year-old youth wellness advocate, Julia Lopez. “Improving the access people have to goods and services will help many people maintain an active lifestyle and prevent obesity.”
T4 America health fly-in participant meets Senator Barbara Boxer
October 15, 2009By Sean Barry
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| Julia Lopez meets Sen. Boxer Originally uploaded by Transportation for America |
Fourteen-year-old Julia Lopez, right, a childhood wellness advocate from Los Angeles, CA, met California Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer in the Capitol yesterday. Lopez is in Washington, D.C. to participate in Transportation for America’s “health fly-in” to speak with Congressional representatives about the link between and health and transportation. Lopez will address her own advocacy against childhood obesity during Congressional meetings and this morning at a briefing in the Capitol Visitors’ Center.
Read more about the health fly-in in this press release.
It’s time to make the link between health and transportation
October 13, 2009By Sean Barry
Most of the news coverage about what is happening in Washington compartmentalizes health and transportation, missing key connections between the two.
This week, Americans from around the country will speak to their representatives, seeking to emphasize those links. The “health fly-in” will commence Thursday and is sponsored by Transportation for America, the American Public Health Association, the Complete Streets campaign and PolicyLink, a research institute specializing in social equity.
The U.S. transportation system – our roads, bridges and highways, as well as bicycle and pedestrian paths – propels our social and economic lives. Unfortunately, the system we have takes a significant toll on our health and safety.
By building neighborhoods, towns and cities that require a car trip for nearly every move we make, we have literally engineered physical activity out of our daily lives. In many sprawling communities, driving is the only option for getting to school, work and recreation, and new road projects tend to favor speeding cars over the people who cross the street.
Poor air quality resulting from pollution contributes between $40 billion and $60 billion to U.S. health care costs annually. Each hour spent in the car increases the risk of obesity. And further, the lack of emphasis on transit, walking and biking lowers mobility for disadvantaged Americans and makes our streets less safe for people both behind the wheel and on foot.
Transportation policy can no longer be viewed in isolation. That is why groups like the American Public Health Association are educating people about the links between the built environment and our personal well-being and organizations from different policy arenas that never saw the need to work with each other before are joining hands.
This week has been all about making the health and transportation link more concrete, and there is more to come.
Republican Senator says more transit = better health
October 8, 2009By Sean Barry
Last week, an offhand comment by Republican Senator John Ensign about the link between health and transportation policy didn’t make the headlines, but it did make an interesting connection.
Ensign was wrong in asserting that the United States has the highest life expectancy among developed countries when gun and automobile accidents are ignored. But he was on target when he mentioned America’s auto-dependent ways and how that negatively impacts our health.
Compared to Europe, “we’re just a much more mobile society,” he said. “We drive our cars a lot more, they do public transportation. So you have to compare health care system with health care system.”
While misunderstanding mobility as just traveling a high number of miles, Ensign correctly implies that driving more and walking less contributes to poor health and makes us more prone to death (in a car) than our European neighbors, which the data suggests to be true. The most obese cities in the United States — Miami, Oklahoma City and Ensign’s own constituents in Las Vegas — are known for their auto-oriented sprawl.
A recent study in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health confirms a correlation between the more active walking habits of Europeans and lower obesity rates, backing up American research from earlier this decade by Smart Growth America and others showing that residents of sprawling places are more likely to be obese.
If we want to boost mobility while bringing health costs down, we need our transportation policy to create more travel options for everyone and make it safer and easier to walk and bike.
Mobility isn’t an end of itself, nor is it just about going long distances on a regular basis. Mobility is about access to destinations and opportunity. We’re spending hours in the car not because ordinary Americans think that having high “mobility” is important — we’re doing it out of necessity just to get around our increasingly spread out cities.
No one would argue that our transportation priorities are the driving force — no pun intended — behind lower health outcomes. But there is enough evidence to suggest they should be a serious part of the discussion.
56 million people in rural America looking for better transportation solutions
July 17, 2009By Lilly Shoup
A top priority in the transportation debate is addressing the mobility needs of the 56 million residents of rural areas and small towns in America – about 20 percent of the population of the United States. Rural areas and small towns often fall through the cracks of federal transportation policy, which focuses on statewide priorities for building new highways and often overlooks local needs and preferences.
Access to jobs, schools, shopping, and critical community services is just as vital for Americans living in small cities, towns and rural communities. Transportation for America has been working closely with our coalition partners on this important issue for some time. Now, it looks like Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood is also getting on board.
Listening to folks at the La Crosse Interstate Fair in Wisconsin this week, he heard many of the same things that we already know:
- It’s getting harder financially to depend on a truck or car for all of a family’s transportation needs.
- Rural residents need public transportation just like city-dwellers do.
- Access to commercial air service is increasingly difficult for rural areas.
- Shippers of grain and other products need better freight options to get rurally produced goods to markets.
Clearly, the transportation system in rural areas and small towns faces challenges and demands that are unique from those in our metropolitan areas. Small cities and towns have higher concentrations of older Americans and families in poverty who would absolutely benefit from more affordable transportation options, beyond just driving. In addition, children in rural areas are 25 percent more likely to be overweight or obese than those in urban areas and face unique barriers to being active and maintaining a healthy weight. Non-metro areas have a larger share of people over age 65 (15 percent) than the country as a whole (12 percent) particularly across the middle of the country. (According to 2004 numbers.)
These challenges are amplified by global changes in the economic marketplace, insufficient funding to maintain substandard or unpaved roads, improve public transportation services, and upgrade or replace substandard and deteriorating bridges.
Our nation’s transportation infrastructure should provide access for all Americans, regardless of their geographic location, age, income, or disability status. While there are no easy answers here, Secretary LaHood’s comments are a good starting point for reframing the debate towards policy options that benefit all Americans, regardless of geography.
Today’s Headlines — 06/22/09
June 22, 2009By Andrew Bielak
- By living closer to jobs and school, city dwellers cut down on carbon emissions. (Chicago Sun-Times)
- Health researchers note that obesity and climate change have many of the same roots — including an auto-dependent lifestyle. (Grist)
- The unpredictable nature of climate change could have dangerous effects on our transportation system. (ClimateBiz)
Webinar Wrap: Public Health and Safety
May 5, 2009By Stephen Lee Davis
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| Download the new policy paper on Public Health and Safety (pdf) |
Transportation for America hosted the fourth webinar in the ongoing series last Thursday, April 30. More than 270 people signed up to hear from health, safety and active transportation experts on the effects of our transportation policy on public health and safety.
Following up on the webinar, we’ve released the 5th in a series of policy papers, focusing on public health and safety.
- Policy Brief: Transportation, Public Health and Safety (pdf)
- Audio and video recording of the entire webinar
- Podcast audio file (.mp3)
- Podcast video file (.mp4)
- Questions asked and answers (DRAFT)
- Sign up for more sessions on the webinars page
Our current transportation system puts our health and safety in jeopardy by contributing to sedentary behaviors, hazardous pollution levels, difficult access to health care, and preventable injuries and deaths.
As our panelists demonstrated, we need federal leadership to help make the critical link between health, safety, and transportation policies and create communities that promote active living, reduce pollution levels, increase accessibility, and ensure safety for all transportation users. Our panelists also addressed the transportation needs among older Americans, minorities, low-income residents, and people who live in both rural and metropolitan areas — all of whom deserve safe transportation that improves health outcomes.
Dr. Robert Cervero, Professor of City and Regional Planning at Cal Berkeley, provided an overview of research studies that show the health benefits of active transportation and the built environment that facilitates active living, and listed congruous evidence-based policy recommendations.
Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, expounded on the connections between transportation, health, and safety and described how Transportation for America’s policy recommendations would improve health, safety, and equity outcomes. Jackie Gillan, vice president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, reviewed how laws, policies, and safety standards can improve safety and reduce mortality rates for transportation users.
Jana Lynott of AARP’s Public Policy Institute elaborated on the diverse transportation projects that can safely move a growing number of older Americans, while helping increase their physical activity levels and provide access to shopping, services, and community centers. And Barbara McCann of the National Complete Streets Coalition described the health, safety, accessibility, and economic benefits of “complete streets” for all transportation users, and reviewed adopted policies and pending or passed legislation across the country.
Webinar resources:
- Policy Brief: Transportation, Public Health and Safety (pdf)
- Audio and video recording of the entire webinar
- Podcast audio file (.mp3)
- Podcast video file (.mp4)
- Questions asked and answers
- Sign up for more sessions on the webinars page
Heavy? Your neighborhood may be to blame
July 30, 2008By Andrew Bielak
America’s obesity problem has a direct connection to the neighborhoods we occupy — and those of us fortunate enough to live in compact, walkable neighborhoods are reaping the health benefits. (MSNBC — Steve Mitchell)
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- U.S. Transportation Department makes good on promise to ensure our streets are made safer
March 16, 2010 - Obama’s livability programs help rural America too
March 16, 2010 - Transit grants out the federal door, but what about the cuts?
March 8, 2010 - Transit riders in Atlanta face massive cuts, “wholesale restructuring” of service
March 5, 2010 - Opposition to Senate extension results in looming shutdown of federal transportation programs
February 26, 2010
- U.S. Transportation Department makes good on promise to ensure our streets are made safer
The United States of Transit Cutbacks
Driving is down and transit ridership is at record highs. Yet transit agencies across the country are considering layoffs, service cuts and fare hikes. Find out more and learn what you can do to help at t4america.org/transitcuts
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