Built environment assessment: Multidisciplinary perspectives.

Context:As obesity has become increasingly widespread, scientists seek better ways to assess and modify built and social environments to positively impact health. The applicable methods and concepts draw on multiple disciplines and require collaboration and cross-learning. This paper describes the results of an expert team׳s analysis of how key disciplinary perspectives contribute to environmental context-based assessment related to obesity, identifies gaps, and suggests opportunities to encourage effective advances in this arena. Evidence acquisition:A team of experts representing diverse disciplines convened in 2013 to discuss the contributions of their respective disciplines to assessing built environments relevant to obesity prevention. The disciplines include urban planning, public health nutrition, exercise science, physical activity research, public health and epidemiology, behavioral and social sciences, and economics. Each expert identified key concepts and measures from their discipline, and applications to built environment assessment and action. A selective review of published literature and internet-based information was conducted in 2013 and 2014. Evidence synthesis:The key points that are highlighted in this article were identified in 2014-2015 through discussion, debate and consensus-building among the team of experts. Results focus on the various disciplines׳ perspectives and tools, recommendations, progress and gaps. Conclusions:There has been significant progress in collaboration across key disciplines that contribute to studies of built environments and obesity, but important gaps remain. Using lessons from interprofessional education and team science, along with appreciation of and attention to other disciplines׳ contributions, can promote more effective cross-disciplinary collaboration in obesity prevention

Alcohol Excise Taxes as a Percentage of Retail Alcohol Prices in 26 OECD Countries

Background: Many countries have implemented alcohol excise taxes. However, measures of excise taxes as a percentage of alcohol prices have not been systematically studied. Methods: Data on the retail prices of alcoholic beverages sold in stores and excise taxes in 26 countries during 2003–2018 was from the Economist Intelligence Unit price city data and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) tax database. The percentages of excise taxes in off-premise retail prices were derived as the ratio of taxes to prices at different price levels. Changes of excise taxes over time were assessed using negative binominal regressions. Results: The percentage of excise taxes in average off-premise alcohol prices was from 5 % in Luxembourg to 59 % in Iceland for beer, and from 0 % in France to 26 % in Iceland for wine. Excise taxes accounted for 5% of discount liquor prices in Czech Republic to 41 % in Sweden for Cognac, for 19 % in the United States (US) to 67 % in Sweden for Gin, for 13 % in the US to 63 % in Australia for Scotch Whisky six years old, and for 6 % in Iceland to 76 % in Sweden for Liqueur Cointreau. There were no significant changes in the percentage of excise taxes in alcohol prices over time in most countries except for Nordic countries. While wine had the lowest excise taxes, liquors had the highest tax burden. Conclusion: Tax burden on alcoholic beverages is low in OECD countries, indicating ample room for increasing alcohol excise taxes, particularly for beer and wine in those countries

What Design Research Does ... : 62 Cards Highlighting the Power and Impact of UK-based Design Research in Addressing a Range of Complex Social, Economic, Cultural and Environmental Issues

Design research makes a significant contribution to the UK economy and society as a whole. Ever since the establishment of the Government Schools of Design in the nineteenth century, the UK has been widely acknowledged as an international leader in design research. Following this lead, the What Design Research Does… cards highlight the wide range of social, economic, cultural and environmental impacts that design research, funded and based in the UK, makes all over the world. The 62 cards illustrate unambiguously the positive changes that contemporary UK-based design researchers are making in many complex issues. Each What Design Research Does… card lists the challenges and issues faced by the design researchers, who they collaborated with, the research methods and approaches taken, the outcomes of the design research, what the main results and findings have been, and what impact the design research has had. In short, the What Design Research Does… cards clearly articulate the breadth of social, economic, cultural and environmental impacts that UK-based design researchers are achieving today

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Support for School-Based Obesity Prevention Efforts: Attitudes among Administrators at Nationally Representative Samples of US Elementary Schools

BACKGROUND: With the continued threat of childhood obesity, many public health intervention efforts focus on school settings. The current study sought to document administrator attitudes regarding obesity and interest in improving relevant school practices (i.e., nutrition and physical activity) in elementary schools. METHODS: Mail-back surveys were used to gather data from public and private elementary schools during the 2006-2007, 2007-2008, 2008-2009, and 2010-2011 school years. In each year, a different set of items pertaining to administrator attitudes was included. Numbers of responding schools annually ranged from 259 to 336 private schools, and from 578 to 748 public schools. RESULTS: The vast majority of elementary school administrators (>90%) agreed that schools can play a role in addressing childhood obesity, physical education improves a variety of academic outcomes, and they were interested in improving practices at their school. Concern about childhood obesity and perceiving that schools can play a role in addressing obesity were both associated with more interest in improving school practices. However, only one-third of administrators agreed that parents were interested in participating in improving nutrition and physical activity practices, suggesting opportunities for efforts to improve collaboration. CONCLUSIONS: Administrators are generally very supportive of school-based efforts to improve nutrition and physical activity practices and see the value in doing so. Given the amount of time children spend in school, schools are an essential venue for efforts to address childhood obesity

Physical Activity Practices in Elementary Schools and Associations with Physical Education Staffing and Training

Purpose: Authorities recommend that schools provide a variety of opportunities for students to obtain physical activity (PA) before, during, and after school. This study assessed the prevalence of several school PA practices—including measures of quantity and quality of physical education (PE)—in elementary schools and examined the associations of PA practices with school resources (PE staffing, training, and facilities). Method: Surveys were obtained from respondents in nationally representative samples of elementary schools from 2009–2010 to 2011–2012 (1,831 schools). Results: Few schools (20.8%) provided students with PE class every day, but most (76.3%) had an appropriate PE student-to-teacher ratio ( ≤ 25:1). Many schools (74.0%) offered 20 min of recess daily, but fewer than half offered organized opportunities for PA before or after school (e.g., sports). After controlling for demographics and school size, having a full-time PE teacher and requiring PE teachers to obtain PE-related continuing education (CE) were associated with PE practices such as offering ≥ 150 min of PE per week (for 3rd-grade students) and testing PE knowledge, skills, and fitness. Required CE was also associated with a higher likelihood of offering PA during the school day (i.e., activity breaks and PA outside of PE class) and before or after the school day (i.e., afterschool PA programs). Conclusion: Few schools offer a broad array of PA programming. However, PE staffing and CE are positively associated with many PA practices including those outside of PE, possibly indicating that PE staff serve a crucial role in promoting a whole-school PA-supportive environment

Availability of Physical Activity–Related Facilities and Neighborhood Demographic and Socioeconomic Characteristics: A National Study

Objectives. We examined associations between neighborhood demographic characteristics and the availability of commercial physical activity–related outlets by zip code across the United States. Methods. Multivariate analyses were conducted to assess the availability of 4 types of outlets: (1) physical fitness facilities, (2) membership sports and recreation clubs, (3) dance facilities, and (4) public golf courses. Commercial outlet data were linked by zip code to US Census Bureau population and socioeconomic data. Results. Results showed that commercial physical activity–related facilities were less likely to be present in lower-income neighborhoods and in neighborhoods with higher proportions of African American residents, residents with His-panic ethnicity, and residents of other racial minority backgrounds. In addition, these neighborhoods had fewer such facilities available. Conclusions. Lack of availability of facilities that enable and promote physical activity may, in part, underpin the lower levels of activity observed among populations of low socioeconomic status and minority backgrounds

Does Pedestrian Danger Mediate the Relationship between Local Walkability and Active Travel to Work?

Background: Environmental and policy factors play an important role in influencing people’s lifestyles, physical activity (PA), and risks for developing obesity. Research suggests that more walkable communities are needed to sustain lifelong PA behavior, but there is a need to determine what local built environment features facilitate making being active the easy choice.Purpose: This county-level study examined the association between local walkability (walkability and traffic calming scales), pedestrian danger, and the percent of adults who used active transport to work. Methods: Built environment and PA outcome measures were constructed for the 496 most populous counties representing 74 percent of the U.S. population. GIS-based walkability scales were constructed and include a census of roads located within the counties using 2011 Navteq data. The pedestrian danger index (PDI) includes data collected from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System 2009-2011, and measures the likelihood of a pedestrian being hit and killed by a vehicle. Four continuous outcome measures were constructed using 2009-2013 American Community Survey county-level 5-year estimates. The measures represent the percentage of workers living in a county who worked away from home and: 1) walked to work; 2) biked to work; 3) took public transit; and 4) used any form of active transport. Linear regression and mediation analyses were conducted to examine the association between walkability, PDI and active transport. Models accounted for clustering within state with robust standard errors, and controlled for median household income, families with children in poverty, race, ethnicity, urbanicity and region.Results: The walkability scale was significantly negatively associated with the PDI (β=-0.06, 95% CI=-0.111, -0.002). In all models, the PDI was significantly negatively associated with all active travel-related outcomes at the p<0.01 level. The walkability scale was positively associated with all four outcomes at the p<0.01 level. Results showed that the significant positive relationship between local walkability and the four active transport outcome measures was partially mediated by the PDI. We found no association between traffic calming, the PDI, and the active transport outcomes.Conclusion: County-level walkability is associated with active travel, and this association is partially mediated by an index of pedestrian safety

Would increasing access to recreational places promote healthier weights and a healthier nation?

Addressing gaps in evidence on causal associations, this study tested the hypothesis that better access to recreational places close to home helps people to maintain lower body mass index (BMI) using a retrospective longitudinal study design and up to 6 years of data for the same individuals (1,522,803 men and 183,618 women). Participants were military veterans aged 20–64 who received healthcare through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in 2009–2014 and lived in a metropolitan area. Although there were cross-sectional associations, we found no longitudinal evidence that access to parks and fitness facilities was associated with BMI for either men or women in the full sample or in subgroups of residential movers and stayers. Our findings suggest that simply increasing the number of parks and fitness facilities may not be enough to achieve needed population-level reductions in weight

Association of Point of Purchase Tobacco Advertising and Promotions with Choice of Usual Brand Among Teenage Smokers

Objectives - To determine the relationship between brand-specific advertising and promotions in convenience stores for Marlboro and Camel cigarettes and choice of usual brand among school students.Design - Cross-sectional survey with merged records of store tobacco advertising and promotions.Setting – United States.Participants – 3,890 high school smokers with a usual brand, matched to 196 convenience stores.Main outcome measures – Choice of Marlboro as a usual brand ; choice of Camel as a usual brand.Results – Choice of Marlboro as a usual brand was associated with presence of a Marlboro gift with purchase (p.05) and negatively associated with a greater share of exterior advertising voice for Camel (p&lt;.001).Conclusions – The results are consistent with the notion that Marlboro-specific advertising and promotions may influence choice of Marlboro as a usual brand to smoke among teens, but results for Camel are mixed and inconclusive.Further research is required to confirm and extend these findings