Utilisation du sol, accessibilité et profil des ménages : effets sur le choix résidentiel et la valeur des propriétés = Land use, accessibility and household profiles : their effects on residential choice and house values

Cette thèse explore et développe différentes méthodes d’analyse afin de mieux comprendre les choix des ménages en terme de localisation résidentielle et les impacts de certaines externalités sur la valeur des propriétés unifamiliales. Le territoire d’étude couvre la ville de Québec, tandis que l’essentiel des analyses repose sur l’analyse de transactions effectuées pendant les périodes 1986-1987 et 1993-2001. De plus, une enquête téléphonique réalisée entre 2000 et 2002 a permis d’obtenir des informations complémentaires sur les critères de choix et le profil socio-démographique de quelque 800 ménages acheteurs de propriétés unifamiliales à Québec. Dans un premier chapitre, l’impact de l’utilisation du sol et plus particulièrement de la végétation est analysée, en ayant recours à la modélisation hédonique. Les données d’utilisation du sol, extraites de photos aériennes et d’une image satellite, sont compilées au sein d’un système d’information géographique, et ce, à différentes échelles. L’impact de la végétation, variable selon la proximité au centre ville, est clairement démontré. Dans un deuxième chapitre, les motivations liées au déménagement et les critères de choix de la résidence et du quartier par les ménages acheteurs sont étudiés. Une analyse des correspondances souligne le lien entre les critères de choix exprimés et les théories cognitive et géographique de « place-identity » et d’espaces de perception. Aussi, des régressions logistiques mesurent la probabilité d’exprimer un critère en fonction du profil du ménage et de la localisation. Le fait d’avoir ou non été préalablement propriétaire, l’âge, le type de ménage, le revenu, le niveau d’éducation ainsi que la localisation sont des facteurs significativement liés à divers critères de choix. Enfin, dans un troisième et dernier chapitre, les données décrivant le ménage sont introduites dans deux types de modèles hédoniques, les uns ayant recours à l’expansion spatiale et les autres utilisant les « Geographically Weighted Regressions ». L’hétérogénéité des valeurs implicites est alors analysée en considérant le profil des ménages. Il apparaît non seulement que la valeur marginale de plusieurs attributs varie en fonction du ménage acheteur, mais que le revenu et le statut de l’acheteur (ancien vs. nouveau propriétaire) ont un impact direct sur le prix d’achat de la propriété. Cette thèse, s’appuyant sur des méthodes d’analyse des marchés résidentiels et ayant recours à divers outils d’analyse spatiale, parvient à établir des liens entre le statut socio-démographique des ménages, leurs critères de choix résidentiels, et la structure spatiale de la ville de Québec.This thesis explores and develops various analytical methods in order to better understand residential choice and the implicit prices of single-family property markets. The area of study is Quebec City, whereas most of the work relies on single-family property transactions that occurred during the 1986-1987 and 1993-2001 periods. A phone survey held between 2000 and 2002 gave additional information on the choice criteria and household profiles of 800 of these actual property buyers. In a first chapter, the impact of the surrounding land use and vegetation is measured using hedonic modelling. Land-use data are extracted from both a mosaic of aerial photographs, and from a Landsat TM-5 image. Various measures of land use, at different spatial scales, are introduced within the hedonic models. More specifically, the heterogeneous impact of vegetation, depending on relative proximity to the Main Activity Centre, is shown. In a second chapter, motivations for moving and residential and neighbourhood choice criteria are analysed. A Correspondence Analysis underscores the links between choice criteria and the psychological and geographical theories of Place-Identity and perception spaces. Also, logistic regressions measure the odds of mentioning a criteria depending on the household profile and location. Previous tenure status, age, income, household structure and location are significantly related to various residential choice criteria. Finally, in a third chapter, the household-level data are introduced within the hedonic framework, using Casetti’s expansion method and Geographically Weighted Regressions. The heterogeneity of implicit prices is analysed regarding the buyer’s household profile. Not only does the marginal value of certain attributes vary regarding the buyer’s profile, but it appears that income and previous tenure status have a direct impact on property values. This thesis, through the development of new methods aiming at analysing residential markets and residential choices, contributes to further understanding the complex links between the socio-demographic dimension of households, their residential choice criteria, and the spatial structure of Quebec City

Landscaping and House Values: An Empirical Investigation

This article is the winner of the Real Estate Valuation manuscript prize (sponsored by The Appraisal Institute) presented at the 2001 American Real Estate Society Annual Meeting. This hedonic study investigates the effect of landscaping on house values, based on a detailed field survey of 760 single-family homes sold between 1993 and 2000 on the territory of the Quebec Urban Community. Environmental information includes thirty-one landscaping attributes of both houses and their immediate environment. By and large, a positive tree cover differential between the property and its immediate neighborhood, provided it is not excessive, translates into a higher house value. Findings also suggest that the positive price impact of a good tree cover in the visible surroundings is all the more enhanced in areas with a high proportion of retired persons. Finally, a high percentage of lawn cover as well as features such as flower arrangements, rock plants, the presence of a hedge, etc. all command a substantial market premium.

Examining the spatial congruence between data obtained with a novel activity location questionnaire, continuous GPS tracking, and prompted recall surveys.

BACKGROUND: Place and health researchers are increasingly interested in integrating individuals' mobility and the experience they have with multiple settings in their studies. In practice, however, few tools exist which allow for rapid and accurate gathering of detailed information on the geographic location of places where people regularly undertake activities. We describe the development and validation of a new activity location questionnaire which can be useful in accounting for multiple environmental influences in large population health investigations. METHODS: To develop the questionnaire, we relied on a literature review of similar data collection tools and on results of a pilot study wherein we explored content validity, test-retest reliability, and face validity. To estimate convergent validity, we used data from a study of users of a public bicycle share program conducted in Montreal, Canada in 2011. We examined the spatial congruence between questionnaire data and data from three other sources: 1) one-week GPS tracks; 2) activity locations extracted from the GPS tracks; and 3) a prompted recall survey of locations visited during the day. Proximity and convex hull measures were used to compare questionnaire-derived data and GPS and prompted recall survey data. RESULTS: In the sample, 75% of questionnaire-reported activity locations were located within 400 meters of an activity location recorded on the GPS track or through the prompted recall survey. Results from convex hull analyses suggested questionnaire activity locations were more concentrated in space than GPS or prompted-recall locations. CONCLUSIONS: The new questionnaire has high convergent validity and can be used to accurately collect data on regular activity spaces in terms of locations regularly visited. The methods, measures, and findings presented provide new material to further study mobility in place and health research

Moving beyond the residential neighbourhood to explore social inequalities in exposure to area-level disadvantage: Results from the Interdisciplinary Study on Inequalities in Smoking

The focus, in place and health research, on a single, residential, context overlooks the fact that individuals are mobile and experience other settings in the course of their daily activities. Socioeconomic characteristics are associated with activity patterns, as well as with the quality of places where certain groups conduct activities, i.e. their non-residential activity space. Examining how measures of exposure to resources, and inequalities thereof, compare between residential and nonresidential contexts is required. Baseline data from 1,890 young adults (18 to 25 years-old) participating in the Interdisciplinary Study of Inequalities in Smoking, Montreal, Canada (2011- 2012), were analyzed. Socio-demographic and activity location data were collected using a validated, self-administered questionnaire. Area-level material deprivation was measured within 500-meter road-network buffer zones around participants’ residential and activity locations. Deprivation scores in the residential area and non-residential activity space were compared between social groups. Multivariate linear regression was used to estimate associations between individual- and area-level characteristics and non-residential activity space deprivation, and to explore whether these characteristics attenuated the education-deprivation association. Participants in low educational categories lived and conducted activities in more disadvantaged areas than university students/graduates. Educational inequalities in exposure to area-level deprivation were larger in the non-residential activity space than in the residential area for the least educated, but smaller for the intermediate group. Adjusting for selected covariates such as transportation resources and residential deprivation did not significantly attenuate the education-deprivation associations. Results support the existence of social isolation in residential areas and activity locations, whereby less educated individuals tend to be confined to more disadvantaged areas than their more educated counterparts. They also highlight the relevance of investigating both residential and non-residential contexts when studying inequalities in health-relevant exposures

Comments on Melis et al. The Effects of the Urban Built Environment on Mental Health: A Cohort Study in a Large Northern Italian City. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health, 2015, 12, 14898-14915.

In a recent paper by Melis and colleagues [1], exposure to certain built environment characteristics-urban density and accessibility to public transit-is found to be related to mental health, even more so among women, the elderly, and the residentially stable (interactions between built environment and individual characteristics in relation to mental health have unfortunately not been tested statistically, which could have strengthened their demonstration).[...]

Poverty, Neighbourhood Characteristics and Trajectories of Maternal Depression

Background: Income, education, being an immigrant and residential neighbourhood characteristics are linked to depressive symptoms. To our knowledge, no longitudinal study has examined the joint influence of demographic and neighbourhood characteristics on maternal depressive symptoms. Objective: To examine the influence of demographic and neighbourhood characteristics on trajectories of maternal depressive symptoms from child age 1.5 to 7 years, in Québec, Canada. METHODS: 1611 mothers from the Québec Longitudinal Study on Child Development, seen regularly since child birth (1998). Maternal depressive symptoms (CES-D), income, and residential neighbourhood characteristics (neighbourhood poverty, unemployment and quality of nearest park) were measured for mothers at child ages 1.5, 3.5, 5 and 7 years. Analyses of the influence of income and neighbourhood characteristics on depression scores (overall trajectory and at each time point) were performed with PROCTRAJ in SAS. Results: Over the 6-year period, 42.6% of mothers showed likelihood of a trajectory of low depressive symptoms, while 46.5% and 10.9% showed likelihood of trajectories of minor and elevated depressive symptoms respectively. Prior elevated maternal depressive symptoms at child age 5 months and being an immigrant mother were associated with a greater likelihood of minor (OR= 6.40 CI 3.40-12.37, p=0.001; OR=2.44 CI=1.09-5.48, p=0.01respectively) or elevated (OR=8.18, CI=1.88-22.88, p=0.005; OR=5.66 CI=1.41-22.65, p=0.01 respectively) depressive symptoms. High perception of neighbourhood safety (top quartile) was associated with lesser likelihood of a trajectory of elevated depressive symptoms (OR=0.12, CI=0.03-0.49, p=0.001). Living near a park with greater green space was associated with lesser likelihood of a trajectory of minor depressive symptoms (OR=0.38 CI=0.18-0.80, p=0.02). Implications: These results suggest that demographic and neighbourhood factors are associated with maternal depressive symptoms. Further research will evaluate the link between trajectories of maternal depressive symptoms and cortisol profiles as such relations vary according to individual and neighbourhood factors. During her doctoral studies, Mai Thanh Tu examined the influences of breastfeeding and low income on biological stress pathways in mothers of healthy infants. After studying stress regulation in preterm infants, Mai is now working on maternal mental health and social factors such as characteristics of the residential neighbourhood, living in poverty conditions and caring for a sick child. Mai is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine at Universite de Montreal, and is funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and the NARSAD foundation

Field validation of listings of food stores and commercial physical activity establishments from secondary data

Background: Food- and activity-related establishments are increasingly viewed as neighbourhood resources that potentially condition health-related behaviour. The primary objective of the current study was to establish, using ground truthing (on-site verification), the validity of measures of availability of food stores and physical activity establishments that were obtained from commercial database and Internet searches. A secondary objective was to examine differences in validity results according to neighbourhood characteristics and commercial establishment categories. Methods: Lists of food stores and physical activity-related establishments in 12 census tracts within the Montreal metropolitan region were compiled using a commercial database (n = 171 establishments) and Internet search engines (n = 123 establishments). Ground truthing through field observations was performed to assess the presence of listed establishments and identify those absent. Percentage agreement, sensitivity (proportion of establishments found in the field that were listed), and positive predictive value (proportion of listed establishments found in the field) were calculated and contrasted according to data sources, census tracts characteristics, and establishment categories. Results: Agreement with field observations was good (0.73) for the commercial list, and moderate (0.60) for the Internet-based list. The commercial list was superior to the Internet-based list for correctly listing establishments present in the field (sensitivity), but slightly inferior in terms of the likelihood that a listed establishment was present in the field (positive predictive value). Agreement was higher for food stores than for activity-related establishments. Conclusion: Commercial data sources may provide a valid alternative to field observations and could prove a valuable tool in the evaluation of commercial environments relevant to eating behaviour. In contrast, this study did not find strong evidence in support of commercial and Internet data sources to represent neighbourhood opportunities for active lifestyle.</p

Geographic Variability in the Association between Socioeconomic Status and BMI in the USA and Canada

Objective: Reported associations between socioeconomic status (SES) and obesity are inconsistent depending on gender and geographic location. Globally, these inconsistent observations may hide a variation in the contextual effect on individuals' risk of obesity for subgroups of the population. This study explored the regional variability in the association between SES and BMI in the USA and in Canada, and describes the geographical variance patterns by SES category. Methods: The 2009–2010 samples of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) were used for this comparison study. Three-level random intercept and differential variance multilevel models were built separately for women and men to assess region-specific BMI by SES category and their variance bounds. Results: Associations between individual SES and BMI differed importantly by gender and countries. At the regional-level, the mean BMI variation was significantly different between SES categories in the USA, but not in Canada. In the USA, whereas the county-specific mean BMI of higher SES individuals remained close to the mean, its variation grown as SES decreased. At the county level, variation of mean BMI around the regional mean was 5 kg/m2 in the high SES group, and reached 8.8 kg/m2 in the low SES group. Conclusions: This study underlines how BMI varies by country, region, gender and SES. Lower socioeconomic groups within some regions show a much higher variation in BMI than in other regions. Above the BMI regional mean, important variation patterns of BMI by SES and place of residence were found in the USA. No such pattern was found in Canada. This study suggests that a change in the mean does not necessarily reflect the change in the variance. Analyzing the variance by SES may be a good way to detect subtle influences of social forces underlying social inequalities

The added value of accounting for activity space when examining the association between tobacco retailer availability and smoking among young adults

Background: Despite a declining prevalence in many countries, smoking rates remain consistently high among young adults. Targeting contextual influences on smoking, such as the availability of tobacco retailers, is one promising avenue of intervention. Most studies have focused on residential or school neighbourhoods without accounting for other settings where individuals spend time, i.e., their activity space. We investigated the association between tobacco retailer availability in the residential neighbourhood and in the activity space and smoking status. Methods: Cross-sectional baseline data from 1,994 young adults (age 18-25) participating in the Interdisciplinary Study of Inequalities in Smoking (Montreal, Canada, 2011-2012) were analyzed. Residential and activity locations served to derive two measures of tobacco retailer availability: counts within 500-meter buffers and proximity to the nearest retailer. Prevalence ratios for the association between each tobacco retailer measure and smoking status were estimated using log-binomial regression. Results: Participants encountering high numbers of tobacco retailers in their residential neighbourhood, and both medium and high retailer counts in their activity space, were more likely to smoke compared to those exposed to fewer retailers. While residential proximity was not associated with smoking, we found 36% and 42% higher smoking prevalences among participants conducting activities within medium and high proximity to tobacco retailers compared to those conducting activities further from such outlets. Conclusion: This study adds to the sparse literature on contextual correlates of smoking among young adults, and illustrates the added value of considering individuals’ activity space in contextual studies of smoking

Local Context Influence, Activity Space, and Foodscape Exposure in Two Canadian Metropolitan Settings: Is Daily Mobility Exposure Associated with Overweight?

It has become increasingly common to attribute part of the obesity epidemic to changes in the environment. Identification of a clear and obvious role for contextual risk factors has not yet been demonstrated. The objectives of this study were to explain differences in local overweight risk in two different urban settings and to explore sex-specific associations with estimated mobility patterns. Overweight was modeled within a multilevel framework using built environmental and socioeconomic contextual indicators and individual-level estimates of activity space exposure to fast-food restaurants (or exposure to visited places). Significant variations in local levels in overweight risk were observed. Physical and socioeconomic contexts explained more area-level differences in overweight among men than among women and among inhabitants of Montreal than among inhabitants of Quebec City. Estimated activity space exposure to fast-food outlets was significantly associated with overweight for men in Montreal. Local-level analyses are required to improve our understanding of contextual influences on obesity, including multiple influences in people's daily geographies