QUANTITATIVE CRITIQUE OF HEALTH IMPACTS
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Quantitative Critique of Health Impacts of Increased Physical Activity from Changes in
Transportation Infrastructure: Quantitative Estimates for Three Communities
Safrat Wague
Texas State University
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QUANTITATIVE CRITIQUE OF HEALTH IMPACTS
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Introduction
This article examined the health impacts of increased physical activity in regards to
changes in transportation and lack thereof. There is a great amount of premature deaths due to
physically inactivity. It has been shown that there is very li1le resources and space to support
walking or biking safely. Without people having a community that provides an environment
that can promote walking or biking, we won’t see a change in physical activity as it is now. It has
now been a concern for transportation agencies and they are trying to integrate considerations
of health in regards to decision making. Health impact assessment (HIA) has emerged as a
systematic framework has been used to help with decisions involving modi6cations to the
environment that has been built and could also impact public health and has educated a slew of
decisions in the transportation sector. There has been of course more qualitative studies versus
quantitative studies that estimates the health benefit that come from changes in your physical
activity level. With that being said, they have now developed two tools to aid in quantitative
HIAs within 4 years. The Health Economic Assessment Tool (HEAT) used for cycling and walking
was introduced by the World Health Organization in 2011 (Mans6eld & Gibson, 2015, p.1). The
Dynamic Model for Health Impact Assessment (DYNAMO-HIA) was recently released from the
European Union Health Programme. The Heat Method as stated by Mans6eld and Gibson
(2015) has been used in several HIAs of policies or projects to promote active transportation
(p.2). The health impacts of a ban on alcohol has used the DYNAMO-HIA to estimate imports in
Sweden, smoking cessation in Great Britain, reduced salt intake in Europe, decreased smoking
prevalence in Copenhagen, and body mass index reduction in Netherlands. Within this article
we will examine how quantitative tools will be used to estimate health eBects of physical
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activity in HIAs in three communities in North Carolina. They examined changes in premature
mortality, coronary heart disease (CHD), type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and stroke were
estimated for each community. In addition, each HIA estimated the ratio of health benefit to
expect project costs (Mans6eld & Gibson, 2015, p.2). The main goal of this article was to
support WalkBikeNC, a physical education plan developed by the North Carolina Department of
