GIS in Urban and Health Research

Piloting the Kids in the City study

2011-02-13T17:33:00.000-08:00

The Kids in the City study is one of the projects involving children, independent mobility and the environment. For this study we are recruiting 120 8-11 year olds from neighbourhoods with diverse built environment characteristics. For example, some neighbourhoods are more walkable than others, whereas some have better access to different destinations.

We plan to measure where children go and how physically active they are by getting them to wear GPS units and accelerometers for seven days. Main data collection is this year, but at the end of last year we did a small pilot study to test the methodology, and I'm very glad we did!

Because our data collection strategy changed between the proposal and the project there were lots of issues that we hadn't considered (e.g. recharging 25 plus GPS units + running a couple of laptops off one powerpoint might not be a great idea). Anyway, the pilot was very useful and now I have some pilot data to try and make sense of.

Can Virtual Streetscape Audits Reliably Replace Physical Streetscape Audits?

2010-12-06T15:26:00.000-08:00

Here we examined the use of google streetview to conduct virtual streetscape audits. We found that in general it provided a cheaper and reliable alternative to conducting the audits in person.

Can Virtual Streetscape Audits Reliably Replace Physical Streetscape Audits?

New Research Projects: Children, Independent Mobility and Neighbourhood Environment

2010-10-26T18:41:00.000-07:00

We recently received funding for a couple of projects that will at children's independent mobility in the city and explore how it's relationship to the built environment.

The first project is looking at the relationship between independent mobility, physical activity and the neighbourhood. This project involves both quantitative and qualitative data collection

The second project is mainly qualitative and involves trying to understand opportunities for play and independent activity for children living in medium an high density housing in Auckland.

Both projects use GPS to collect information on travel and mobility.

We have just started the pilot for the first project and I'm currently trying to figure out the logistics of managing the quite intensive data collection.

Measuring Neighbourhood Walkability in NZ Cities

2010-03-23T21:18:00.000-07:00

The Measuring Neighbourhood Walkability in NZ Cities report is available for download from SHORE or Knowledge Auckland.

The report describes three measures of transport-related urban form that are being

developed using GIS and applied in New Zealand cities. The three measures are

• Walkability Index (combining street connectivity, dwelling density, land-use

mix, and retail floor area ratio)

• Neighbourhood Destinations Accessibility Index (NDAI)

• Land Use and Public Transport Accessibility Index (LUPTAI)

GPS, GIS and Accelerometer Methodology issues paper published

2010-01-13T17:54:00.000-08:00

Our paper looking at methodological issues (there are lots of them!) in using GPS, GIS and Accelerometery was published in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health. A nice start to 2010!

Combining GPS, GIS, and Accelerometry: Methodological Issues in the Assessment of Location and Intensity of Travel Behaviors
Authors: Melody Oliver, Hannah Badland, Suzanne Mavoa, Mitch Duncan, Scott Duncan

Hello Blogger!

2009-11-22T20:29:00.000-08:00

I have copied my whowherewhy.wordpress.com blog over to this blog because I want more control of the template.

This will be my new blog home until I get itchy feet again.

New GPS in Health Research Network (GPS-HRN) website

2009-11-19T02:00:00.000-08:00

The GPS in Health Research Network (GPS-HRN) is an international network of academics and health researchers interested in GPS technology.

The new website is now live www.gps-hrn.org

Built Environment and Schools

2009-11-19T01:57:00.000-08:00

Here are some websites related to the built environment and schools

Travel to School

Feet First - helping NZ primary schools promote walking.

Safe Routes to School - a US network to advance the Safe Routes to School (SRTS) movement in the United States. SRTS can provide a variety of important benefits to children and their communities, including increasing physical activity, reducing traffic congestion, improving air quality, and enhancing neighborhood safety.

Learning about the Built Environment in Schools

Engaging Places - a built environment education project looking at the supply and demand of built environment education in UK schools.

UNSW Built Environment - schools and community engagement

Journals for GIS in Urban and Health Research

2009-11-13T03:46:00.000-08:00

A list of journals relevant to my research in: GIS , Urban, Health and Social.

IF = impact factor. WL = word limit. Open Access journals in bold.

GIS & Health
International Journal of Health Geographics IF: 2.03
Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology

GIS & Spatial Analysis
Computers and Geosciences IF: 1.188; 5yr IF: 1.442; WL: 5,000 – 6,000 words
Computers, Environment and Urban Systems IF: 1.025
Geographical Analysis IF: 2.564
International Journal of Geographical Information Science 2008 IF: 1.596; 5yr IF: 2.293; WL: 6,000 words
Journal of Geographical Systems
Journal of Location Based Services
Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences
Transactions in GIS

Cartography
Cartographica
Geocarto International

Urban / Built Environment / Planning
Cities IF: 0.574; 5yr IF: 0.939
City, Culture and Society
Journal of Urban Affairs IF: 1.271
Journal of Urban Design WL: 9,000 words
Journal of Urban Technology 2008 IF: 0.297; WL: 5,000-8,000 words
Journal of Urbanism WL: 8,000 words
Progress in Planning IF: 0.312; 5yr IF: 0.491
Urban Policy and Research WL: 8,000 words
Urban Research & Practice WL: 8,000 – 9,000 words
Urban Studies IF: 1.381

Geography
Annals of the Association of American Geographers 2008 IF: 2.679
Antipode IF: 2.506
Applied Geography IF: 1.700; 5yr IF: 1667
Area IF: 1.78
Emotion, Space and Society
Geoforum IF: 1.441; 5yr IF: 2.093
Geographical Research
Geography Compass
GeoJournal
Journal of Regional Science IF: 0.958
Papers in Regional Science IF 1.259
The Geographical Journal IF: 1.638
The New Zealand Geographer IF: 0.667
The Professional Geographer 2008 IF: 1.714; WL: 5,000 words
Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie IF 0.457
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers IF: 3.967

Health
American Journal of Epidemiology IF: 5.454
American Journal of Preventive Medicine IF: 3.766; WL: 3,000 – 4,000 words
Annals of Epidemiology IF: 2.621; WL: 2,000 – 3,000 words
British Medical Journal IF: 12.827
BMC Public Health IF: 2.03
EcoHealth
Emerging Themes in Epidemiology IF: 1.63
Environmental Health IF: 2.48
Epidemiologic Perspectives & Innovations IF: 1.54
Health & Place IF: 2.818; 5yr IF: 2.738
Health Policy IF: 1.334
International Journal of Behvioral Nutrition and Physical Activity IF: 2.32
International Journal of Epidemiology IF: 5.838
Journal of Community Health
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health IF: 3.186
Journal of Public Health
Journal of Urban Health
Population Health Metrics: IF: 2.25
Public Health IF: 1.204
Social Science & Medicine IF: 2.604; 5yr IF: 3.588

Transport
Journal of Transport Geography IF: 1.271
Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice IF: 1.832; 5yr IF: 2.384
Transportation Research Part B: Methodological IF: 1.874; 5yr IF: 2.593
Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies IF: 1.082; 5yr IF: 1.878
Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment IF: 1.118; 5yr IF: 1.447

Sustainability
International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development WL:7,000-10,000 words

I know this blog looks ugly...

2009-10-07T03:35:00.000-07:00

But have been too busy calculating access to gaming machine venues across NZ to pretty it up. The gambling access calculations have not been without problems. Will post on problems and solutions when I finish calculating...

Community mapping examples

2009-09-10T07:54:00.000-07:00

I recently gave a talk about community mapping at a Living Streets Aotearoa meeting. This post contains the examples of community mapping that I mentioned in the talk. All these examples all fall within my general area of research, i.e. social health and wellbeing, and almost all of these examples use google maps.

Note: By "community mapping" I mean maps made by the community. There are other things it might possible be called or related to: neogeography, participatory mapping, volunteered geographic information, collaborative mapping etc. I didn't have time to figure out the appropriate name.

Example 1: Mapping the location of fruit and urban edibles

City Fruit (Seattle)

Bloomington Urban Harvest

Fernwood Fruit Tree Project

Fitzroy Feral Fruit Map

New Zealand Fruit and Food Share Map

Example 2: Bicycle routes

MapMyRide

Bikely

Ride the City - safe bike routes in NYC,. This is more a map for the community than a map by the community, but I thought it was interesting

Example 3: Walkability & Cycleability audits

Woodbridge Township Safe Routes to School project - schools & community participate in walkability audits to figure out safe routes to school.

Example 4 - Mapping perceptions of the environment

Rescue Geography's Eastside project - not all these are collaborative, but there are interesting google earth and google maps that include stories, quotes, photos, video and ambinet sounds of the city. There is also an interesting cycling perceptions project underway.

Free/Open Source Research Tools

2009-09-03T08:27:00.000-07:00

The International Journal of Conservation (Oryx) has a good list of free and open source research tools.

Zotero is my favourite.

URBAN methods paper published

2009-08-20T03:28:00.000-07:00

The research design and methods paper for the URBAN (Understanding the Relationship Between physical Activity and Neighbourhood) study has been published in BMC Public Health. This is the project where I calculated walkability for neighbourhoods and use this to select neighbourhoods with high and low walkability for the study.

emm beddahbil kitteh

2009-04-21T10:45:00.000-07:00

Here Kitteh, the first "dataset" I uploaded to Koordinates. She was a test kitteh and a work of ArcGIS art.

kitteh from Koordinates
kitteh on Koordinates

Maori GIS Conference

2009-04-08T04:43:00.000-07:00

The focus of the conference is Maori GIS projects and GIS related projects relevant to Maori aspirations. It is being held in Christchurch from 13-15 May 2009.

EOI for presenters close 15 April.

http://www.ngaitahu.iwi.nz/Events/2009/GIS-Maori-Conference/

Guide to Publishing in Geography

2008-09-24T10:05:00.000-07:00

The handy guide to Publishing in Geography by RGS-IBG and Wiley-Blackwell.

Via Very Spatial.

Vipers and Vampires: Measuring Oil Vulnerability

2008-08-22T10:03:00.000-07:00

Had a very interesting visitor yesterday: Jago Dodson from the Urban Research Program at Griffith University in Australia. Jago has published research on measurement of Oil Vulnerability in Australian cities eg:

Oil Vulnerability in the Australian City: Assessing Socioeconomic Risks from Higher Urban Fuel Prices (Dodson and Sipe, 2007)
Shocking the Suburbs: Urban Location, Housing Debt and Oil Vulnerability in the Australian City (Dodson and Sipe, 2006)

Oil vulnerability is measured by combining various census variables (mode of transport to work, number of cars in a household) and socioeconomic data (SEIFA) to produce the VIPER (Vulnerability Index for Petrol Expense Rise).

The VAMPIRE (Vulnerability Assessment for Mortgage,Petrol and Inflation Risks and Expenditure) is a measure of oil and mortgage vulnerability and includes mortgage information.

I decided to try this for a NZ city. Here is a quick lo-res attempt at an Auckland VIPER:

[caption id="attachment_28" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="VIPER index from 2006 census data. Dark = more vulnerable to oil price increases. Light = less vulnerable."][/caption]

Now I just need to find some mortgage data, cause even though VIPER is a pretty cool name, I love the idea of creating a VAMPIRE index!

One conference down: three more to go

2008-07-07T09:07:00.000-07:00

Went to NZ Geographical Society conference last week. Report to follow. But I will say it was freezing and that I bought ear muffs from Spacesuit.

Now I only have 3 more conferences to go to this year:

Walking 08

Geocart/SIRC 08

NZ ESRI User conference

One a month. And I have to present at all of them. Ick! I still hate presenting. The people who say "it gets easier" are wrong.

Health and The Built Environment Seminar

2008-07-07T06:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Reid Ewing, a Research Professor at the National Center for Smart Growth, visited SHORE and gave a talk that touched on various aspects of the relationship between the Built Environment and Public Health.

He talked about the sprawl index they developed, which is comprised of: low density, highly segregated land use, lack of centering, and poor street connectivity. Low accessibility is also a characteristic of sprawl.

Sprawl has been linked to outcomes like: increased VMT (Vehicle Miles Traveled), worse air quality, climate change, and traffic safety.

Climate change and traffic safety were new ideas things for me.

Reid also mentioned the 6 "D" variables that influence travel at the meso and micro scale: Density, Diversity, Design, Demographics, Distance to transit, and Destination accessibility.

Some of those D's are relatively straightforward. Design is more complicated to measure but the key point is that "human scale" design is good.

A very interesting comment that Reid made was that Destination accessibility is the most important variable in terms of VMT. This relates to the CO2 project ie my model which measures change in accessibility under different transport scenarios.

things that get in the way of doing research: new computers

2008-06-06T05:53:00.000-07:00

A new computer is a good thing. Mostly. However, it takes a large chunk of time to reinstall everything and copy stuff. I have installed the essentials: FF, zotero, ArcGIS, assorted ArcGIS extensions and backup software. But I still have a lot more to install: SAS, SPSS, Google Earth, Dreamweaver, random other GIS type apps.

The other thing about new computers is that they often start doing weird stuff. Like going blank temporarily.

I knew all this, so I ordered the new computer months ago so that it would arrive before the busy season. But it was slow to arrive and so it arrived right in the middle of the busy season.

lost things - I want to track articles

2008-06-05T07:23:00.000-07:00

I keep losing articles. Usually the most important articles. And no matter how organised I am with my citation management (woohoo zotero!) it still doesn't know where I last put the paper copy. Is it in the office? Is it at home? Did I leave it on the bus? I don't know! And, yes, I could print out another copy, but I usually scrawl profound notes on the important articles.

I need tiny tracking devices. Pretty colour-coded stickers would be ideal. Linked to my online citation manager. Then when I lose an article I can go look at a map and see exactly where it is. That'd be cool. It'd be even cooler if I could zoom in to see a map of the piles of paper on my desk and I could see exactly where in the piles of paper the article is.

Auckland Harbour bridge walkway/cycleway

2008-05-08T07:01:00.000-07:00

Petition for a walkway /cycleway across the Auckland Harbour bridge:

Get Across

when I am lonely the mountains call me

2008-04-30T11:48:00.000-07:00

What a cool paper name! How could I resist tracking down and reading an article entitled "When I am Lonely the Mountains Call Me": The Impact of Sacred Geography on Navajo Psychological Well Being?

I came across it while googling "wellbeing" and "geography." And it took quite a long time to find an electronic version of the paper, which is very unusual. Most things are at the tips of my fingers and available within seconds. But this took around 45 minutes to track down. Of course I was also multitasking and doing other things at the same time.

Anyway. You can find the pdf here at the National Center for American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research.

As a result of the difficulty in tracking down this somewhat obscure article I have started a list of journal links. I think I will only add the obscure and less easy to find instantly journals though.

And no I haven't read the article yet, but I think it's about homesickness...

conference deadlines

2008-04-22T06:57:00.000-07:00

Gosh it is busy. Abstract after abstract after abstract...

The Australasian Transport Research Forum 2008 abstract deadline was yesterday. Managed to get something in on time. Although if it gets accepted, then I only have a month to do the analysis AND write the paper. On top of everything else. Hmmm.

The GeoCart 08 paper is due next Monday. Have lots of ideas relating to the Mauri project, perhaps too many, but I haven't written anything, so I think I might have to give the full paper thing a miss, and settle for just an abstract and presentation.

Then the New Zealand Geographical Society 2008 conference abstracts are due the following week. Still thinking about whether to do something for this conference. Maybe two or even three things. That would be efficient. Two birds. One stone.

And all the papers to write as a result. Hmmm... I'm not even going to many conferences this year!

What to do with old business cards

2008-04-20T08:31:00.000-07:00

During the four years in my previous job my company changed it's name once, and changed it's branding four times. So I have piles of old business cards. The other day I discovered a use for them: write down potential paper ideas on the back. This is extremely useful for me cause it seems that whenever I read a paper I frequently get lots of ideas for other papers and/or questions to research in the future. Having paper ideas on small cards is great cause not only do I have a record on them, but I can also lay them out and shuffle them around to organise them.

[gallery]

little plane flies through lightning

2008-04-16T13:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I got to fly in a little plane that was being jostled from side to side almost continuously. Just as well I was still half asleep. But more interestingly, I got to fly in a little plane right through a thunder and lightning storm. "Electrical activity" doesn't look that much different at x-thousand feet than it does at 0-thousand feet, aside from perspective and the just seeming closer thing. But it certainly feels different at altitude.

The pilot said it was perfectly safe. I'm not convinced about that. But it was certainly dramatic.

This is kind of related to research/work in that I sometimes have to fly in planes to do research and work.

Sustainability: Paul Weaver Seminar & NZSSES Conference

2008-04-08T10:29:00.000-07:00

I thought about submitting an abstract for this years NZSSES (New Zealand Society for Sustainability Engineering and Science) Conference. It's on "Blueprints for Sustainable Infrastructure". Of course I've never actually studied or researched or read about sustainability in particular. I've just heard the word used everywhere.

So in the interests of a crash course in sustainability I went along to the Paul Weaver lecture on the MATISSE project. Very interesting! And my goodness the seats in the new Business School building are comfortable! Anyway. The lecture which was scheduled for half an hour went on for over one and a half hours!!

Sustainability seems to be an interesting idea. More so because it seems kind of obvious to me, yet it also seems to be a problem and lots of people seem to be very concerned about it and are looking for ways to solve the problem (again it seems obvious, but maybe I'm naive and don't know all the intricacies).

Paul was an interesting and enthusiastic speaker and because it was all new to me, he sparked lots of ideas. I will write about them later.

Anyway, thinking about submitting an abstract for the conference (I didn't) and going to the lecture made me very curious about what all this sustainability fuss is about. My PhD probably relates to it. But then it seems that everything relates to it.

Web tools for my PhD: Zotero and others

2008-03-25T11:25:00.000-07:00

So I was going to work on my PhD proposal today, but instead I spent the entire day trying to ascertain whether there is a quick and easy way to do a PhD - there isn't. Or if there is, google does not know about it. Although I did come across someone who said that one of his student finished a PhD in 6 months. That is inspiring!

I also spent the day researching web-based research tools to make PhD life easier. I found that although there are lots and lots of research tools, most of them are annoying and do not do exactly what I want them to. Here is what I discovered and decided about research tools:

Citation Manager: Zotero
I decided to use zotero to manage my citations. And maybe syncing to citeulike and connotea in order to take advantage of community/sharing functions that zotero does not have. The main reasons I chose Zotero is that it is the best at easily capturing citations while browsing the web, and it can store associated documents (pdfs, snapshots). In addition, it allows tagging, multiple folders, saved searches, and has a playlist like functionality, and you might almost persuade yourself that you are listening to music. Other good things: it integrates with Word and OpenOffice, it it is open source.

Downsides of Zotero are that the citation database is stored on the local computer (or portable drive). Apparently they have plans to allow online storage, but that hasn't been implemented yet. Also it only works in Firefox and some other browser (not Internet Explorer). And another (minor) problem I have with Zotero is not seeing an ID number associated with each reference. I like to write these on any printouts so I can find them easily.

I think I will buy myself a new flash drive and install portable Firefox and Zotero on it and backup to both computers.

Must be careful to back things up and not overwrite the wrong files.

Working Online: Zoho or Google

Not quite sure on this yet. I am trying out both for writing, note-taking etc. I wonder if anyone has written a PhD in Google Docs? Probably not yet. I think I will have to write the actual PhD in Word, but could use google or zoho for drafts and notes and intermediary bits and pieces. Although the major drawback is that there is no integration with any of the citation managers.

Blog: Wordpress

Why Wordpress? Cause I didn't have a Wordpress blog. Although I do now: who where why. As you can see I don't have a thesis title yet, and the topic needs refining, but I figured whatever I choose it is going to relate to who where and why. And whowherewhy is easier to remember than really-long-convoluted-thesis-title.

Other

I will continue to use:

gmail for email

del.icio.us for bookmarks (wonder if it can integrate with Zotero?)

rememberthemilk for todo lists (integrated with google calendar and twitter)

google calendar (synced to Outlook)

twitter for who knows what! I might start a special PhD twitter account though. I am not quite sure how useful twitter will be, but that is no reason not to try and see!

LinkedIn for networking

Publications

2008-03-01T09:00:00.000-08:00

Papers

Witten K, Huakau J, Mavoa S (forthcoming) Social and recreational travel: The destinations, travel modes, and CO2 emissions of New Zealand households. Social Policy Journal of New Zealand.

Oliver M, Badland HM, Mavoa S, Duncan,MD, Duncan JS (2010). Combining GPS, GIS and accelerometry: Methodological issues in the assessment of location and intensity of travel behaviors. Journal of Physical Activity and Health, 7(1), 102-108.

Badland HM, Schofield GM, Witten K, Schluter PJ, Mavoa S, Kearns RA, Hinckson EA, Oliver M, Kaiwai H, Jensen VG, Ergler C, McGrath L, McPhee J (2009) Understanding the Relationship between Activity and Neighbourhoods (URBAN) Study: research design and methodology. BMC Public Health,v.9

Reports

Mavoa S (2008) Accessibility Model to Measure the Social Impact of Reduced Fuel Consumption Scenarios, SHORE & Whariki, Massey University, Auckland (Objective 3, milestone 8 )

Rose, E, Witten, K, Sweetsur, P, Huakau, J, Mavoa, S, McCreanor, T (2006) Key Social and Environmental Factors that Influence Neighbourhood Walking and Mode Choice in Neighbourhood Utilitarian Trips, Reduced CO2 from Sustainable Household Travel Research Programme Technical Report, Objective 2 Milestone 6, June 2006. Auckland: Centre for Social and Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation & Te Ropu Whariki

Conference Papers

Mavoa, S (2007) Estimating the social impact of reduced CO2 emissions from household travel using GIS modeling. In Morris, Jenny and Rose, Geoff, Eds.Proceedings 30th Australasian Transport Research Forum (ATRF), Melbourne, Australia. (PDF 1.6Mb)

Osborne PD, Mavoa S, Holman RA. (1999) Video remote sensing of longshore currents in a high energy surf zone. In: C. Stewart (ed.), Proc. Canadian Coastal Conference ‘99. Victoria, BC, CCSEA, pp. 225-236.

Conference Presentations and Posters

Witten, K, Mavoa, S, Kearns, RA (2009) Objective measures of a walkable neighbourhood: how do they fit with residents’ experiences? State of Australian Cities 2009, Perth, Australia, 24 – 27 November

Mavoa S (2009) GIS in research exploring the relationship between the built environment and health. NZ ESRI User Conference 2009, Wellington, New Zealand, 2-5 November 2009.

Mavoa S (2008), Modeling change in accessibility as a measure of the social impact of reduced CO2 emissions from household travel, National Cartographic Conference (Geocart 2008) and 20th Annual Colloquium of the Spatial Information Research Centre (SIRC), University of Auckland, September 2008

Mavoa S, Witten K (2008) Neighbourhood walkability: developing tools to measure infrastructural and experiential factors associated with walking for transport and walking for leisure, New Zealand Walking Conference, Auckland 4-5 Aucgust 2008

Mavoa S (2008) Investigating the relationship between the built environment, transport and health, Sustainable Cities Session, New Zealand Geographical Society Conference, Victoria University, Wellington, 2-5 July, 2008

Mavoa, S (2007) Estimating the social impact of reduced CO2 emissions from household travel using GIS modeling. 30th Australasian Transport Research Forum (ATRF), Melbourne, Australia, 2007

Mavoa, S (2007) Spatio-temporal modeling of accessibility under different transport scenarios. Poster presented at the 8th International Conference on Spatial Information Theory, COSIT 2007, Melbourne, Australia, September 19-23, 2007. (PDF 1.2Mb)

Witten K, McCreanor T, Mavoa S, Greenaway S, Reducing CO2 Emissions from Domestic Travel: Exploring the social and health impacts, EcoHealth, Deakin University, December 2007, Melbourne, Australia

Huisman O, Mavoa S, Forer P (2003) “Mapping Time in Space: the three-dimensional representation of activity and opportunity in time and space.”GEOCART2003 Conference. 12-14 February 2003 (Taupo, New Zealand)