Abstract

Mapping food access, land use and walkability in healthy planning
Track: Urban and Regional Planning
Authors: Brian Fulfrost

Over the last ten years there has been a significant growth in the application of GIS to explore correlations between the built environment and negative public health outcomes like obesity. Many studies have mapped geographic gaps and barriers to accessing healthy food as well as physical infrastructure that provide opportunity for physical activity. The food environment includes not just supermarkets, but important resources such as community gardens, famers markets, and ethnic markets. At the same time, the use of network analyses tools to map "walkability", by measuring access along the actual pedestrian network, have become more common place. Brian will present the methods and results of two SF bay area projects using GIS to map access to food resources, walkable communities, and other "healthy planning indicators" and their correlations with socioeconomic status and public health outcomes for informing local planning efforts.