A new article on this link may be of interest to you and your networks:
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2012/09/alarmingly-strong-link
-between-diabetes-and-walkability/3326/
"Researchers at St. Michael's Hospital and the Institute for Clinical
Evaluative Sciences examined data from more than one million residents
of Toronto and concluded that people who lived in less walkable
neighborhoods were significantly more likely over time to develop
diabetes. The effect was particularly strong for immigrants to the city,
many of whom live with a high-risk combination of genetic predisposition
to diabetes, poverty and poor walkability. In the most startling
finding, the study found that a new immigrant in a less walkable
neighborhood was more than 50 percent more likely to develop diabetes
than a long-term resident of Toronto living in one of the most walkable
areas, regardless of neighborhood income.
The study looked at just about everyone in Toronto aged 30-64 - the
population experiencing the most rapid rise of diabetes incidence - and
singled out those who did not have diabetes as of March 31, 2005. The
study followed these people over the next five years: in all, 1,239,262
of them, including 214,882 who appeared to be recent immigrants based on
registration in the province's healthcare plan.
By March of 2010, 58,544 of these people had developed diabetes. And the
walkability of the communities in which they lived turned out to be
closely linked to that outcome (given the complex factors that affect
health, the researchers acknowledge that they can't definitively say
this relationship is directly causal)."
(shorter URL:
http://goo.gl/FgYwW)
(study URL:
http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/early/2012/08/24/dc12-0777.abst
ract)