When one family member looks out the window at sidewalks and green space and the other sees a multilane highway and power lines, the differences may contribute to more than just sibling rivalry. A new study by University of Maryland public health researchers has shown that those neighborhood characteristics correlate with different health outcomes. Quynh and Thu Nguyen—UMD associate professors of epidemiology and biostatistics and twin sisters—used Google Street View to combine neighborhood walkability and aesthetic data with health information from the Utah Population Database, a unique resource that interlinks family histories and demographic and medical statistics.
This allowed the research team, which also included experts from the University of Utah and the University of Alabama, to analyze how the built environment correlates with health among siblings and twins. The results of their study were published in the June issue of SSM—Population Health . After examining records from nearly 2 million people, including 1 million siblings and 14,000 identical and fraternal twins, the team found that across all three samples, positive built environment characteristics were associated with 15%–20% reductions in obesity and diabetes rates.
"Neighborhoods research is especially complicated because it's often observational. You can only observe where people live; you often don't get a chance to randomize them to their residential neighborhoods," said Quynh Nguyen, the study's.
