Re: [H+T--Friends] More on Car Travel and Health

Great feedback – thanks. I will bring this to my committee as we continue to look for meaningful collaborations and discussions on topics of mutual interest. M Marsha Anderson Bomar, AICP Senior Principal Stantec 3160 Main Street Suite 100 Duluth GA 30096 Ph: (770) 813-0882 Cell: (678) 708-6148 marsha.andersonbomar(a)stantec.com stantec.com<http://www.stantec.com/> The content of this email is the confidential property of Stantec and should not be copied, modified, retransmitted, or used for any purpose except with Stantec's written authorization. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete all copies and notify us immediately. ü Please consider the environment before printing this email. From: h+t--friends-bounces(a)ryoko.chrispy.net [mailto:h+t--friends-bounces@ryoko.chrispy.net] On Behalf Of Jason Meggs Sent: Friday, January 20, 2012 1:01 PM To: TRB Health and Transportation Subject: Re: [H+T--Friends] More on Car Travel and Health Nice to see, be sure to read Todd Litman's excellent response. I agree with Todd that the title is overstated; the article is asking us to question whether confounding factors are also important, perhaps separate from transportation (and land use) behaviour/characteristics, which was not to say transportation factors have no effect. I also agree with Todd that a county-level analysis misses the variations in land use (and other factors) that occur within counties. This is great for a regional view, but not for a total analysis. The authors suggest such confounding factors as: * food choices * sedentary hobbies * stress * unemployment rates * regional culture I would counter, for one, that we consider car culture to be larger than just the modal split. Would people eat at drive-through restaurants if they could conveniently and comfortably walk food sources? Would people shuttle children as much if those destinations were more available by other means? Please don't take my statements as comprehensive, I know this is very broad and I too just ask us to think more broadly. In terms of analysis by gender, Marsha, the did not look at gendered factors, although the bio of one of the two authors, Anne Price, states that her "teaching and research specializations are in cross-national sociology and methodology, with a particular focus on women’s health and status". The article looked at county-level data to get a visual idea of large scale regional differences. I don't know if the ratio of males to females varies much across the country in that way. Other gendered behaviors certainly could; who does the shopping and driving of children, for instance? Is that more common in the "Bible Belt" than New England, for instance? The article and the topic as a whole invites a great deal of inquiry. Jason Meggs === Jason N. Meggs, J.M., M.C.P., M.P.H. University of Bologna DICAM - Transportation Engineering Group Viale Risorgimento, 2 40136 Bologna, Italy Office: +39 051 209 3338 Fax: +39 051 209 3337 Mobile: +39 333 1565 787 Email: jason.meggs@unibo.it<mailto:jason.meggs@unibo.it> jason@healthycity.net<mailto:jason@healthycity.net> jmeggs@berkeley.edu<mailto:jmeggs@berkeley.edu> Web: http://jasonmeggs.com/ Skype: jasonmeggs USA Phone: +1 510-725-9991 On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 5:39 PM, Anderson Bomar, Marsha <Marsha.AndersonBomar@stantec.com<mailto:Marsha.AndersonBomar@stantec.com>> wrote: