Spatial mobility and environmental effects on obesity.
In this paper, we used a randomized experiment, the Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing Demonstration (MTO) study, to assess whether several environmental attributes are causes of obesity. To accomplish our objective, we linked the MTO data with several external data sources that provide information on potential determinants of obesity including food prices, restaurant and food store availability, physical activity facility availability, the prevalence of crime and population density. We find that the environmental factors we examined are unable to explain the observed decrease in obesity associated with the MTO experiment among low-income minority women.
Institute for Health Research and Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1747 West Roosevelt Road, Chicago, IL 60608, United States. Electronic address: zzhao5@uic.edu.
Zhenxiang
Z
Zhao
Institute of Government and Public Affairs, University of Illinois, 815 West Van Buren Street, Suite 525, Chicago, IL 60607, United States. Electronic address: kaestner@uic.edu.
Robert
R
Kaestner
Institute for Health Research and Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1747 West Roosevelt Road, Chicago, IL 60608, United States. Electronic address: xxu11@uic.edu.
Xin
X
Xu
D000328:Adult; D015992:Body Mass Index; D003415:Crime / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004777:Environment; D015444:Exercise; D005260:Female; D005502:Food / Q000191:economics; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009765:Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology*; D011156:Population Density; D011203:Poverty / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015995:Prevalence; D012111:Residence Characteristics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012147:Restaurants / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors
Environmental characteristics; Obesity