Dynamics, Economics & the Built Environment: Diet, Activity, and Obesity

This study will examine how key contextual factors, in particular economic and modifiable built environmental factors, affect dietary intake and physical activity patterns, and in turn, obesity dynamics.  There are major gaps in our understanding of the way shifts in the physical, economic and social environment affect the progression of changes in physical activity and obesity patterns across each segment of the life span. Our long-term goal is to specifically examine changes in environments over time (both environmental changes as well as individual movement) and the effect of these changes on physical activity behavior and subsequent weight dynamics.

Our research team has developed technology that allow creation of a unique innovative Obesity and Environment database that provides the first national, longitudinal research on environmental determinants of physical activity and obesity. It is the first large-scale spatial linkage of detailed directly measured community- and individual-level data. Further, it is the first time-varying approach for collection of retrospective spatial data, allowing exploration of environmental changes in relation to individual changes over time.

Currently we have funding from NIH and other agencies that have allowed us to conduct our research with National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) data from wave I to III and several years of the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults Study (CARDIA) data. Add Health, a large study of 20,000 adolescents in 1995,1996, and 2001, provides huge samples of non Hispanic whites and Blacks, Hispanics and nonHispanic Asians living in the US. CARDIA is a 20-year survey of over 5,000 black and white young adults 18-30 who have been followed over this period.

Detailed overview is given at:

Add Health – Economics & the Built Environment

CARDIA – Obesity, Diet and Activity Dynamics as Affected by the Economic & the Built Environment

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Nutrition Transition Program