UCBHIG - HIA Research

Health Impact Assessment Research

UCBHIG is working to develop new methods for assessment. One aspect of methodological development is the establishment of the standard template for HIA reporting, which can be found in our HIA Project Reports. The second aspect of our research involves community participatory environmental health projects. The third aspect of our research concerns developing exposure assessment and health assessment tools, which can be used within applications of HIA.

Exposure Assessment and Health Assessment Tools

Noise: A GIS-based model was developed to assess exposures to vehicle traffic-induced community noise. The model was used to describe the distribution of noise annoyance within San Francisco.

Vehicle Traffic: At the heart of the noise, air, and pedestrian injury models is a vehicle traffic model, that relies upon remote sensing, and object-oriented classification methods to discrimate between different vehicle types.

Air: Currently we are exploring a number of competing methods for modeling micro-scale air pollution. A network of particulate and NO2/NOx monitors has been deployed throughout San Francisco to inform this work. Methods include the use of spatial interpolation, spatial regression, urban canyon dispersion models.

Pedestrian Injuries: Based on the same traffic database, we have developed a spatial regression-based approach to estimate pedestrian injuries within San Francisco.

Community-based Participatory Research

We have partnered with PODER to conduct a retrospective HIA to assess the environmental impacts experienced by a population living near a freeway. The assessment involves noise and air monitoring and modeling, and a community health impact survey.

Publications

Seto, E.Y.W., Holt, A, Rivard, T, Bhatia, R (2007), Spatial distribution of traffic induced noise exposures in a US city: an analytic tool for assessing the health impacts of urban planning decisions, International Journal of Health Geographics, 6(24). [link]

Holt, A., Seto, E., Rivard, T., Gong, P., (in review) Optimization of segmentation parameters for object-oriented target detection in remotely sensed imagery, Intl J of Remote Sensing.

Bhatia, R. (2007), Protecting Health Using an Environmental Impact Assessment: A Case Study of San Francisco Land Use Decisionmaking, Am J Public Health, 97: 406-413. [link]

Dannenberg, A.L., Bhatia, R., Cole, B.L., Dora, C., Fielding, J.E., Kraft, K., McClymont-Peace, D., Mindell, J., Onyekere, C., Roberts, J.A., Ross, C.L., Rutt, C.D., Scott-Samuel, A., Tilson, H.H. (2006), Growing the Field of Health Impact Assessment in the United States: An Agenda for Research and Practice, Am J Public Health, 96: 262-270. [link]

Bhatia R, Katz M. (2001), Estimation of health benefits accruing from a Living Wage Ordinance, American Journal of Public Health, 91:1398-1402. [link]