How the built environment affects behavior: recent research in active transportation and health

For the past decade, the Urban Form Lab (UFL) has collected a large database of integrated geospatial data for the Puget Sound Region to support research on the effects of the built and social environments on behavior. Specific research has addressed such topics as land monitoring, neighborhood design, active transportation, active lifestyles, and access to food environments, with grants from the U.S. and Washington State Departments of Transportation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and local agencies. The UFL environmental data can now be integrated with objective data on the location and activity of individuals in continuous space and time. Location and behavior are measured in small temporal increments (~30 sec.) and tracked within large spatial areas (>2,000 km2).