How does the way our neighborhoods are designed affect cardiovascular health?
February 20, 2020
Researchers from Waseda University, the University of Calgary, and Tohoku University aim to understand how urban design could influence cardiovascular health. (CREDIT: Waseda University)
A team of researchers from Waseda University, the University of Calgary, and Tohoku University has been working in collaboration on a series of studies in Japan and Canada that look at the relationship between urban design and cardiovascular health.
Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death worldwide. According to the Global Burden of Disease Study, approximately 17.8 million people die from the disease each year. Some of the well-established risk factors of cardiovascular disease are diet, smoking and exercise, but recently, there has been a growing scientific and political interest in understanding how our neighborhoods are designed could help prevent cardiovascular disease.
“We know there is a link between certain neighborhood characteristics, such as good access to green spaces, and cardiovascular health,” says Javad Koohsari, an assistant professor in urban design and health at Waseda’s Faculty of Sport Sciences. However, “how and why neighborhood characteristics influence cardiovascular health are not well-established. We are trying to identify the pathways through which the built environment affects cardiovascular health,” says Koohsari.
Koohsari has been working with Gavin McCormack, an associate professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Calgary; Tomoki Nakaya, a professor at the Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Tohoku University; and Koichiro Oka, a professor at the Faculty of Sport Sciences at Waseda to investigate this link between neighborhood characteristics and cardiovascular disease. In their commentary paper published in Nature Reviews Cardiology on February 12, 2020, the team identified several key conceptual, methodological, and policy-relevant gaps in our current knowledge and proposed future directions to produce scientific evidence-based findings on the relationships between neighborhoods and cardiovascular disease.
“We have identified a total of eight issues which need to be addressed in order to produce robust evidence, one of them being the need to consider people’s daily mobility and activity spaces,” Oka explains. “People are exposed to different places at different times of the day, so we could use a global positioning system points and ecological momentary assessments to where and when or how often people are exposed to risk factors of cardiovascular disease.”
Koohsari says, “Though we must not let urban design and public health policy get ahead of ‘science,’ we hope that future studies will answer several of the key questions on how to design or redesign built environments to prevent cardiovascular diseases and promote healthier communities.”
Reference
Journal: Nature Reviews Cardiology
Title of original article: Neighbourhood built environment and cardiovascular disease: knowledge and future directions
Authors: Mohammad Javad Koohsari (Waseda University), Gavin R. McCormack (University of Calgary), Tomoki Nakaya (Tohoku University), Koichiro Oka (Waseda University)
DOI: 10.1038/s41569-020-0343-6
Link to article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41569-020-0343-6?draft=collection
本プレスリリースは発表元が入力した原稿をそのまま掲載しております。また、プレスリリースへのお問い合わせは発表元に直接お願いいたします。
このプレスリリースには、報道機関向けの情報があります。
プレス会員登録を行うと、広報担当者の連絡先や、イベント・記者会見の情報など、報道機関だけに公開する情報が閲覧できるようになります。
このプレスリリースを配信した企業・団体
- 名称 早稲田大学
- 所在地 東京都
- 業種 大学
- URL https://www.waseda.jp/top/
過去に配信したプレスリリース
日本の子ども達の体水分状態はやや不足気味
7/4 14:00
早稲田大学、外部型TLO「株式会社早稲田大学TLO」を設立
7/4 12:00
ジェームズウェッブ宇宙望遠鏡、133億光年かなたの星団を捉える
7/4 11:00
ポリエステル衣類の放射線照射発光を発見、陽子線ビームの画像化にも成功
7/3 11:00
試行錯誤で学んだことで起きてしまう判断のバイアスは世界共通
6/28 11:00
下水を用いる感染症対策の経済価値
6/27 14:00
尿に極微量含まれる子宮頸がんウイルスタンパク質の検出に成功
6/25 14:00
音楽ライブの観客が「同期」するメカニズム
6/20 14:00
文理融合で社会実装 言語教育のAI活用を支える言語テスト妥当性研究の真髄
6/6 14:00