TY - JOUR
T1 - Built environment profiles for Latin American urban settings
T2 - The SALURBAL study
AU - Sarmiento, Olga L.
AU - Useche, Andrés F.
AU - Rodriguez, Daniel A.
AU - Dronova, Iryna
AU - Guaje, Oscar
AU - Montes, Felipe
AU - Stankov, Ivana
AU - Wilches, Maria Alejandra
AU - Bilal, Usama
AU - Wang, Xize
AU - Guzmán, Luis A.
AU - Peña, Fabian
AU - Quistberg, D. Alex
AU - Guerra-Gomez, John A.
AU - Diez Roux, Ana V.
N1 - Funding Information:
Olga L. Sarmiento, Andrés F. Useche, Daniel A. Rodriguez, Iryna Dronova, Oscar Guaje, Felipe Montes, Ivana Stankov, Maria Alejandra Wilches, Usama Bilal, Xize Wang, Luis A. Guzmán, Fabian Peña, D. Alex Quistberg, John A. Guerra-Gomez, and, Ana V. Diez Roux were funded by the Wellcome Trust [205177/Z/16/Z]. The Salud Urbana en América Latina (SALURBAL)/Urban Health in Latin America project was funded by the Wellcome Trust [205177/Z/16/Z]. In addition, Usama Bilal was also funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under award number DP5OD26429. Mention of trade names, commercial practices, or organizations does not imply endorsement by the authors, the institutions where the authors work, or funding entities. The funders had no role in study design, data collection, and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. There was no additional external funding received for this study. More information about the SALURBAL project can be found at https://drexel.edu/lac.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Sarmiento et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2021/10
Y1 - 2021/10
N2 - The built environment of cities is complex and influences social and environmental determinants of health. In this study we, 1) identified city profiles based on the built landscape and street design characteristics of cities in Latin America and 2) evaluated the associations of city profiles with social determinants of health and air pollution. Landscape and street design profiles of 370 cities were identified using finite mixture modeling. For landscape, we measured fragmentation, isolation, and shape. For street design, we measured street connectivity, street length, and directness. We fitted a two-level linear mixed model to assess the association of social and environmental determinants of health with the profiles. We identified four profiles for landscape and four for the street design domain. The most common landscape profile was the “proximate stones” characterized by moderate fragmentation, isolation and patch size, and irregular shape. The most common street design profile was the “semi-hyperbolic grid” characterized by moderate connectivity, street length, and directness. The “semi-hyperbolic grid”, “spiderweb” and “hyperbolic grid” profiles were positively associated with higher access to piped water and less overcrowding. The “semi-hyperbolic grid” and “spiderweb” profiles were associated with higher air pollution. The “proximate stones” and “proximate inkblots” profiles were associated with higher congestion. In conclusion, there is substantial heterogeneity in the urban landscape and street design profiles of Latin American cities. While we did not find a specific built environment profile that was consistently associated with lower air pollution and better social conditions, the different configurations of the built environments of cities should be considered when planning healthy and sustainable cities in Latin America.
AB - The built environment of cities is complex and influences social and environmental determinants of health. In this study we, 1) identified city profiles based on the built landscape and street design characteristics of cities in Latin America and 2) evaluated the associations of city profiles with social determinants of health and air pollution. Landscape and street design profiles of 370 cities were identified using finite mixture modeling. For landscape, we measured fragmentation, isolation, and shape. For street design, we measured street connectivity, street length, and directness. We fitted a two-level linear mixed model to assess the association of social and environmental determinants of health with the profiles. We identified four profiles for landscape and four for the street design domain. The most common landscape profile was the “proximate stones” characterized by moderate fragmentation, isolation and patch size, and irregular shape. The most common street design profile was the “semi-hyperbolic grid” characterized by moderate connectivity, street length, and directness. The “semi-hyperbolic grid”, “spiderweb” and “hyperbolic grid” profiles were positively associated with higher access to piped water and less overcrowding. The “semi-hyperbolic grid” and “spiderweb” profiles were associated with higher air pollution. The “proximate stones” and “proximate inkblots” profiles were associated with higher congestion. In conclusion, there is substantial heterogeneity in the urban landscape and street design profiles of Latin American cities. While we did not find a specific built environment profile that was consistently associated with lower air pollution and better social conditions, the different configurations of the built environments of cities should be considered when planning healthy and sustainable cities in Latin America.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85117887477&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0257528
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0257528
M3 - Article
C2 - 34699532
AN - SCOPUS:85117887477
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 16
JO - PloS one
JF - PloS one
IS - 10 October
M1 - e0257528
ER -