Studies have found associations between specific neighborhood characteristics and cardiovascular disease, 1 self-rated health, 2 walking and other forms of physical activity, 3 obesity, 4 – 8 lower-body functional limitations, 9, 10 symptoms of depression, anxiety, and conduct disorders. Additionally a downloading tool is provided which saves a user defined area to disk for. 11 – 13, asthma, 14, 15 and crime and violence. All viewed map section will be stored on disk and may be viewed offline. Neighborhood environment studies present practical challenges, especially in studies using large and geographically dispersed samples. Neighborhood features are commonly inventoried using survey respondent self-report, administrative data, or observer audits, and each of these strategies has benefits and limitations. Share, Data Download, Coordinates, Google Streetview and Draw Tools. Survey-based measures can be useful for assessing how residents perceive their neighborhoods however, using respondent reports of neighborhood conditions can introduce bias because outcomes may be correlated with measurement error on the independent variable (i.e., the “same source bias” problem). This page lists Top of the South Maps tools and gives brief instructions of how to. 18 One way to address same source bias is to field a parallel survey, administered to an independent sample, to measure neighborhood conditions. 19, 20 However, the additional sample increases survey costs substantially.Īlternatively, some researchers use administrative data and GIS tools to characterize urban environments. While spatially referenced administrative data are becoming more widely available and are clearly useful for neighborhood health studies, 21 such data are usually collected to meet local administrative priorities, such as needs assessment and evaluation of service quality. Even in areas with rich administrative geospatial data resources, the data often do not include many neighborhood features of interest to researchers.Īlthough some cities are making administrative data publicly available, data are often inconsistently available or collected using different methodologies across jurisdictions. 22īecause of these disadvantages, many researchers have relied on neighborhood audits, also called systematic social observation. 17, 23 – 26 Neighborhood audits enable researchers to define theoretically relevant measures and allow assessment of reliability and validity.

Street view ruler tool download