Greetings all,
Also relevant to the discussion of HEAT - CDC is exploring the development and
dissemination of HEAT tools in the US and, along with Active Living Research, commissioned
a survey of potential HEAT users. The brief summary report of the survey findings can be
found here:
http://www.activelivingresearch.org/files/HEATReport_Final.pdf
----
Chad Spoon, MRP
Research Coordinator
Active Living Research
University of California, San Diego
3900 Fifth Avenue, Suite 310
San Diego, CA 92103
Voicemail: 619-260-5539
Fax: 619-260-1510
Website:
www.activelivingresearch.org
A national program supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Building the evidence to prevent childhood obesity and support active communities.
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Today's Topics:
1. Health economic assessment tools (HEAT) for walking and
cycling (Jason Meggs)
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Message: 1
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:49:49 +0100
From: Jason Meggs <jason(a)healthycity.net>
Subject: [H+T--Friends] Health economic assessment tools (HEAT) for
walking and cycling
To: TRB Health and Transportation <h+t--friends(a)chrispy.net>
Message-ID:
<CAMXZTAxm2_kMRANG8enLNs9j1ewWQVw6qLKbbn6WyP9-j82PUQ(a)mail.gmail.com>
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Dear friends in H+T,
There's a new health assessment tool, an online calculator for the
economic benefits of increased walking and cycling, e.g., due to an
intervention.
Report:
http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/155631/E96097.pdf
Calculator:
http://www.heatwalkingcycling.org/
Having spent some time trying the calculator, I wrote the below
overview and observations (including how to avoid certain pitfalls) to
help people have an easier time with the tool. This forwarded message
thread was originally written to the email discussion list of the
Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals (APBP), in
response to Anne Lusk at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Jason
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jason Meggs <jason(a)healthycity.net>
Date: Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 7:27 PM
Subject: Re: [apbp] Health economic assessment tools (HEAT) for
walking and cycling
To: Anne Lusk <ANNELUSK(a)hsph.harvard.edu>
Cc: members(a)lists.apbp.org
Thanks Anne,
Great stuff. We're experimenting with HEAT for the BICY project here
in Central Europe.
Very useful -- there's an online calculator:
http://www.heatwalkingcycling.org/
This calculates, for either walking or cycling, "an economic
assessment of the health benefits of walking or cycling by estimating
the value of reduced mortality that results from specified amounts of
walking or cycling".
Even better, one can choose two points in time, when the amount of
cycling changed, to show the benefits of an effort to increase cycling
by calculating economic benefits over a period of years after the
change. ?I suspect one could also show the costs of some horrible
change that made people walk or cycle less. ?The tool can be more
versatile than the instructions suggest.
Because while experimenting with this calculator, I found it would be
helpful to know what would be needed in advance (there are a number of
paths to take, and a variety of data needed for each path), I am
summarising it here for APBP folks.
This is also because, *warning*, ?it can be a bit buggy if one has
more than one open at a time -- jumping to the results based on
another of the previous/other instance(s) -- and possibly not
functioning properly when one goes back and forth to try different
options. ?That's part of why I took the trouble of summarising the
tool's input needs. I'll send this recommendation to the authors as
well.
Thus, if exploring with this, I recommend you open only one instance
at a time and to start a new one, click on "exit the assessment"
and/or close the one you have, and only then click on "start a new
assessment".
There are some limitations to be aware of in addition to the amount of
literature available to base the calculator on, such as the target
population being 20-64 years (no children, no seniors), and a focus
only on regular trips (although you may be able to use irregular trips
if you know the correct total and/or average amounts). The data
required may also be challenging to obtain for many places and years.
Although it gives great options by performing the calculation using
either of three categories (trips, duration, or distance, and a fourth
for walking -- number of steps). Thus it would be good if the project
summarised this on the website before one starts, to help one choose
the best path to work towards fulfilling (e.g., so you can plan based
on whether the data is available).
For the trips instance, one needs to provide the population of the
regular cyclists as well as their average individual rates, ?.
For distance and duration, you need:
* Amount per cyclist (minutes or hours for duration; km, metres or
miles for distance)
* Days cycled per year (always interesting to seek out weather patterns)
* Number of individuals doing the amount of cycling entered
For trips (average per person or total observed across a population), you need:
average number of trips per person (adult), or total number of trips:
A. average number of trips per person:
- The average number of trips per person per day
- Days per year do people cycle this amount
- Proportion of these trips are cycling trips
- Average trip duration or distance (WARNING, the default options are
reversed here from the above; default is now hours not minutes for
duration, and metres not km for distance)
- The number of individuals doing the amount of cycling you entered
B. Alternately, total number of trips:
- the number of trips observed per day:
- proportion of these trips are cycling trips
- then either the number of people who take cycling trips, or estimate
the number of cyclists based on the proportion of return journeys out
of all trips observed (takes you to a calculator, with a page of
instructions)
- average trip duration or distance
I did not fully assess yet whether walking benefits are calculated
differently than cycling, but it looks the same with the addition of
an exciting new option:
C. Number of steps! For this you need:
- Average # steps for an average day, week, month or year
- Average step length
After dealing with one of the three (or four, for walking) main
choices above, the calculator is probably the same for the rest:
You also need to choose a mortality rate, and the economic value of a
life. (There are default values offered for Europe and some other
countries, but not for the USA and Canada.
You next choose the "standard value of a statistical life used in the
country of study" (a problematic concept at best..) and the currency.
Here you can use the CAD or USD, although CAD is not in alphabetical
order.
You can also assess the cost effectiveness of an intervention (you
must know the cost of promoting cycling, and use a number for the
expected change in cycling). So if you have an idea of how much
cycling will increase from, say, a big promotional campaign, or
building new facilities, you can make an economic assessment of the
cost effectiveness of the intervention (although limited as you can
only study part of the cycling, limited by age and whatever regular
trips you have data for, but of course one can estimate or run various
scenarios on possible outcomes).
Lastly, you must also choose a discount rate (always an easy task!). A
default of 5.0% is offered.
Note that if you chose to compare two points in time, you will also
enter your post-intervention cycling data (data on the second point in
time). ?Good news, you have three choices again in case your data
types differ for the two points in time. ?You will also be asked to
estimate the proportion of the new cycling attributable to the
intervention (or just 100% to assess all cycling, or to recklessly
assume the intervention did all the work). You also have to give time
to "maximum uptake" which basically is a fancy way of asking how many
years between the two points in time. ?(The calculator directions
sometimes assumes too much; what if you are assessing two points that
occurred in the past?) ?Be sure to differentiate between that time
period for the increase of cycling, and the time period during which
benefits accrue (assuming cycling is now at a new steady level, total
the benefits you get for X years.).
I hope this is helpful and makes the calculator easier to use. I'd be
interested to hear of anyone using these tools and what you think (and
what your results were :).
Happy calculating!
Jason
===
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(a)unibo.it
????????? jason(a)healthycity.net
????????? jmeggs(a)berkeley.edu
Web:
http://jasonmeggs.com/
Skype: jasonmeggs
USA Phone: +1 510-725-9991
On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 5:06 PM, Anne Lusk <ANNELUSK(a)hsph.harvard.edu> wrote:
Dear All,
??? Here is a link to the "Health economic assessment tools (HEAT) for
walking and cycling.
http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/155631/E96097.pdf
Page 16 discusses the Relative Risk of bicycling and walking.? There weren't
enough articles for bicycling so they are relying on the Relative Risk from
the Anderson article.?The study did not look at speeds of bicyclists or
pedestrians. Thomas Gotschi, who?some may know from?his having worked at
Rails-to-Trails, was a member of the committee.
Anne
Anne Lusk, Ph.D.
Harvard School of Public Health
665 Huntington Ave Bld II Rm 314
Boston, MA 02115
AnneLusk(a)hsph.harvard.edu
617-432-7076 work
617-872-9201 cell
617-432-2435 fax
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