Bringing health into transportation planning
Whether it be disease prevalence, mortality rates or our general quality of life, how we move has a big impact on population health – the overall health and well-being of a specific group of people, such as a community, city, state or nation. “Transport can be detrimental to population health, with the most adverse impacts happening in rapidly urbanising cities in lower- and middle-income countries,” says James Woodcock(opens in new window), a professor at the University of Cambridge(opens in new window). To illustrate, Woodcock points to the fact that, in 2016, there were an estimated 1.3 million road traffic deaths and 4.3 million deaths related to outdoor air pollution. “We clearly need to shift away from the car and motorbike and towards more active, sustainable and safe modes of transport – and many cities are already investing in policies that aim to do exactly that,” he adds. But, as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and without the proper tools to estimate the health impact of transport policies, these cities could be making costly mistakes. “The need to better integrate health evidence with transport research and decision-making is both a major research gap and opportunity,” notes Woodcock. Helping to fill this gap is the EU-funded GLASST(opens in new window) project.
Promoting health as a factor in travel pattern predictions
The European Research Council(opens in new window) supported project set out to create methods, models and tools to support the inclusion of health in transport decision-making. “Although there are models for predicting how changes in travel patterns might influence health outcomes, they lack the ability to produce reliable or comparable results,” explains Woodcock, the project’s principal investigator. “What policymakers and researchers need is the next generation of transport and health impact models and tools that are academically robust and practically useful.” To deliver such tools, Woodcock and his team developed methods and associated computer programmes that allow users The European Research Council(opens in new window) supported project set out to create methods, models and tools to support the inclusion of health in transport decision-making. “Although there are models for predicting how changes in travel patterns might influence health outcomes, they lack the ability to produce reliable or comparable results,” explains Woodcock, the project’s principal investigator. “What policymakers and researchers need is the next generation of transport and health impact models and tools that are academically robust and practically useful.” To deliver such tools, Woodcock and his team developed methods and associated computer programmes that allow users to estimate current travel patterns across many settings in a consistent manner and then run scenarios on how they might change and how this might lead to changes in population health. In addition to these more global tools, the project also developed more localised solutions for where transport models exist. “For a smaller number of cities, we were able to build even more advanced models that can represent where people are and what their exposure to air pollution, greenspace, physical activity, noise and injury risk are based on their location and mode of travel at that point in time,” remarks Woodcock.
Transforming how the health impact of transport policies is modelled
The project’s work is already having an impact. For example, its findings on how exposure to air pollution could be related to dementia and other neurological disorders were presented to the World Health Organization(opens in new window) (WHO). Researchers also used the pandemic to analyse the impact COVID-19 related restrictions had on air quality and whether this change in environmental exposure benefited cardiovascular and mental health. “This allowed us to show in practice just how much benefit an actual reduction in traffic-related air pollution can have,” says Woodcock. “In a way, it validates our models.” The project further used its models to map urban policy interventions for reducing traffic-related emissions and air pollution and to understand the health implications of the Paris Agreement – amongst other things. “Our work will transform how we model the health impact of transport policies and scenarios around the world,” concludes Woodcock.